The Green Belt Movement Blog

This blog was written by an intern in GBMI’s Europe office, Eliina Brinkberg

The International Criminal Court (ICC) announced yesterday that four of Kenya’s most influential leaders are due to face trial on the charges of helping orchestrate the violence which killed more then 1000 people in the aftermath of the disputed 2007 presidential election. Two of the four men accused are this year’s presidential candidates: Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta and former Education Minister William Ruto.

The post-election violence in Kenya in December 2007 began after the police forced independent observers to leave the centre where votes were being counted following which the electoral body declared President Mwai Kibaki the winner. The violence that erupted started off as a political riot but ended up in the killing of 1133 people and displacement of approximately 600,000 people. The outbreak of violence was the worst in Kenya since the independence in 1963.

The pre-trial Judge at the ICC, Ekaterina Trendafilova confirmed the charges yesterday (23rd January 2012) and added that, “the Prosecutor established grounds to believe crimes against humanity were committed. The Chamber also found that these crimes were committed were targeted to specific groups”.

Yesterday’s ICC ruling is a big milestone in Kenya's long struggle in the fight against impunity, corruption and reckless tribal politics Professor Karanja Njoroge, Acting Executive Director of the Green Belt Movement said:

“Many Kenyans have, for many years, suffered the injustice of being hounded out of their homes every election year; their properties destroyed, people killed and maimed, and thousands of women and girls raped. It’s time that the voices of these victims are heard.

Since its founding, GBM has advocated for laws that embody the tenets of human rights and democracy. GBM was at the forefront of the campaign for a people’s constitution, brought into force with the new Kenyan constitution in August 2010, whose foundations are based on democracy and the rule of law.

Our view about justice for the 2007 post election violence victims was that Kenyans were best suited to try their own through an independent tribunal specifically established to deal with these crimes. However, this option was fought against by politicians including those who are now to stand trial, Kenyans are looking up to the ICC to deliver justice to the many people uprooted by the politically instigated unrest which was intended to depopulate particular ethnic communities from certain areas.

We advocate that Kenya works towards solidifying the gains made in the struggle against impunity: by supporting an independent and robust local judicial system, and complying with all international treaties and conventions that safeguard human rights, democracy and peace.

GBM hopes that yesterday’s ruling will be viewed as a step in the right direction towards a tolerant, democratic and more peaceful society. No one will ever be above the law!”

At 2 am on the 2nd of November 2011, Sasha Hank set off on her final ascent to Lenana Point, the peak of Mount Kenya. In the darkness, she trekked through rock, sand and snow before she made it to Lenana Point – sitting 4,985m (16,355 ft) above sea level. Sasha and her companions reveled in their triumph as they sat among the clouds on the third highest peak of the tallest mountain in Kenya. Her accomplishments extended beyond the mountain for Sasha’s trek was one of dedication and commitment to the Green Belt Movement (GBM).

Sasha started her journey months earlier when she took up the challenge to climb Mount Kenya and raise an amazing £3,500 ($5,429) for GBM. She first learned about GBM after reading Professor Maathai’s autobiography, Unbowed, and was inspired by the struggles, determination and successes of Professor Maathai and the Movement. Her interest led her to GBM’s website where she discovered GBM’s Trek Mount Kenya Challenge and immediately knew she wanted to get involved. After signing up for the trek, she began fundraising through emails and her JustGiving page. With perseverance, she raised £3,785 ($5,861) – over £285 ($442) more than the target!

Sasha had never been to Kenya or Africa before, nor had she done anything like the challenge, but she was completely open to the experience and savored that “never before” feeling. The trek showed her a new country and gave her an insight into other cultures. Sasha’s trek opened a window into life in Kenya, how people in rural Kenya live and what their values are. When asked about her experience Sasha says “I felt invigorated by the challenge and it is something I would do again.”

Sasha stood at the top of Kenya. She climbed for women and the environment. She climbed so that GBM can continue to fund projects that mobilize community consciousness- using tree planting as an entry point- for self-determination, equity, improved livelihoods and security, and environmental conservation.


Congratulations and ASANTE SANA Sasha for your amazing accomplishment!

*Exchange rates for USD were calculated on Jan 6th, 2012.

The UN climate change talks ended over a week ago in Durban. The talks over ran by 36 hours as governments struggled to find agreement. Many NGOs, including the Green Belt Movement, condemned the talks as too little too late to stop catastrophic climate change. According to science we are still on track to experience over 4 degrees increase in temperature which will be devastating for much of Africa. The deal done in Durban falls short of creating a mandate for emission cuts that is ambitious enough and also means the next commitment period will only come into force possibly in 2020. Countries including the US, Canada, China, New Zealand, Poland and India received Fossils for their poor performance in weakening the potential deal.

On the final Friday NGOs occupied the ICC where the main negotiators were meeting. NGOs protested the lack of ambition and urgency in the talks. The protests were a combination of old-style anti-apartheid activism with singing and slogans, and this year's occupy movement with a "mic check" sing and answer. From inside the talks many negotiators gave a long applause to show their support.

One of the outcomes of the talks was on Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD)- progress was made on some of the technical issues relating to how to set up REDD, including reference levels and measurement of emission reductions. However weak decisions on environmental and social safeguards mean that the rights of local peoples and seeing real benefits for biodiversity are not secured in REDD. This is worrying for GBM as we presented a paper sharing our experiences delivering forest carbon reforestation afforestation projects including one pilot project under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) Biocarbon fund of the World Bank . GBM's CDM project is one of the very few CDM projects that is community lead with a focus on community livelihoods while restoring indigenous forests in Africa.

It is clear to GBM that as these projects currently are structured benefits to communities, biodiversity and creating climate resilience are not a given and only organisations willing to make large additional investments (sometimes making the project not cost effective) would be able to enable communities to benefit from such funding. This puts a question mark over the potential for REDD to truly deliver climate justice for those who will be most affected by climate change. A recent UN report puts women as four times more likely to lose their lives in a natural disaster. We know that the rural African women are among those who have done the least to bring about climate change and yet they will be among the first to suffer from the impact of climate change. Our work has focussed on empowering rural African women and their families for over thirty years, and after these climate change talks, the importance of hearing their voices and experiences at the decision making table is as great now as ever before.

These talks were also marked by a number of special memorials held for Wangari Maathai including at Forest day 5 and at the civil society venue. In memory of Wangari, Barack Obama made his only direct contribution to the talks paying tribute to her and her steadfast commitment. From one former community activist now President of the USA to another activist who fought all her life for justice, who shared Kenya as a part of their heritage, action continues to speak louder than words.

Prior to and during the recently concluded COP17, I attended many meetings on women, gender and climate change. Following climate change debates and getting a handle on all the players and issues involved in this complex topic is quite daunting. One of the issues still debated is a conceptual one; whether discussions should focus on women and climate change or gender and climate change. Both would take their place in climate change discussions, but they would require different approaches.

One of the meetings I attended in preparation for COP17 was a consultative dialogue meeting on women and climate change. The theme for the meeting was “Women unite, towards a fair, transparent, equitable and inclusive COP17 and beyond” and was based on the outcomes of consultations with women from 24 African countries about what they wanted to get out of COP17. From this meeting and from meetings which took place during the COP17 I gleaned the following to these important questions:

Where do women and Africa fit in the climate change debate? To put it into context, Africa is one of the most vulnerable continents to climate change and is already under pressure from climate stresses. Over 43% of the land in Africa is either dry or very dry, and over 330 million people depend on it for their survival. The links between gender, the environment, and climate change are complex and there exists a myriad of factors which affect each of these elements. Women and men experience climate change differently and are likely to adopt different coping mechanisms. Discrimination against women limits their access to resources, limits their role in decision-making processes and continuously makes them more vulnerable than men to the effects of climate change.

So, what is in their favour? Africa has the largest number of Women Ministers and Deputy Ministers in charge of the environment in the world, including in South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and 10 other African countries. In addition there are also a number of women ministers and deputies that are in charge of sectoral ministries such as water, forests, sanitation or agriculture.

What had they achieved so far? Women in Africa have recorded some significant milestones in their involvement in the climate change. In 2008 and 2009 they pushed for the recognition of the heightened vulnerability of women and children to impacts of climate change in the 12th session of African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN). In 2009 and 2010, in collaboration with UNEP, African women ministers supported the integration of gender issues in the development of sub-regional frameworks in East, Central and North Africa. Thus far, Africa Women Ministers continue to be the strongest voice in international conferences on climate change.

So, what do they really want? From the consultative dialogue meeting on women and climate change, Africa women prepared a communiqué to be declared during the COP17, which made reference to existing commitments such as the Convention on Elimination of Discrimination of Against Women (CEDAW), and the African Union’s Gender Policy. The document reflected the African women’s wishes; empowerment through greater involvement in the planning, decision-making and implementation stages of measures to address climate change. Only through this empowerment of women will the unequal impacts of climate change on women be redressed.

It is 5:30 pm in Durban on 6th of December 2011, the 9th Day of the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 7th Session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the parties (CMP 7) to the Kyoto Protocol. The High-level segment has started and I am sitting watching the big screens in the second row in the King Protea Plenary hall, which is an overflow area from the main plenary hall- the Baobab hall. I am in the midst of the COP17 negotiations. Since I arrived in Durban for COP17 every morning I have taken a 25 minute bus ride from Umhlanga up the coast on the Indian Ocean, to the conference centre the Inkosi Albert Luthuli International Convention Centre (ICC). At the start of the day I am very keen to get a copy of the daily programme to familiarize myself with the happenings of the day and a few documents highlighting the previous day's negotiation sessions. I am often torn between what events to attend as there is so much going on in various locations both inside the ICC and beyond and my day is spent attending negotiation meetings, that are open to observers and NGOs, attending official side events and press briefings. It is important to be up to speed with the current status of the climate change negotiations.

Today’s opening of the High-level Segment is facilitated by the President of COP17 Ms. Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, the Minister of International Relations and Cooperation. She started by inviting the Executive Secretary of UNFCCC Ms.Christiana Figueres to update Heads of States and Heads of Delegation of parties on the progress made in the past week. She highlighted a number of issues, many which directly linked to the support of developing countries, including:
- National adaptation plans, the Nairobi work programme for promoting adaptation actions and a work programme on loss and damage from climate change impacts;
- The Green Climate Fund;
- The conditions for safely supporting the reductions of emissions from deforestation;
- The governing arrangements for the Technology Mechanism;
- Further progress on monitoring, reporting and verification; and increasing clarity on how to take forward the review.

Ms Figueres stated that the delegates at COP17 has during the last weeks created the conditions in order to achieve a solution to climate change but that it is now up to the ministers to ‘craft the solutions’. She said that the solutions must ensure that:
- There is clarity on the contours of a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol and that an implementation gap is ruled out;
- That there is clarity on how to achieve strong rules-based rigour and structure in the global effort to tackle climate change going forward;
- That there is clarity on how to avoid an ambition gap; and that there is clarity on how funds will be scaled up from now until 2020.

UN General Secretary Ban Ki Moon was next up and urged delegates to carefully consider the 2nd Commitment under the Kyoto Protocol. He told of how a young boy earlier this year from the island of Kiribati told him of his fear of sleeping in their home at night, because the young's man island was slipping beneath the waves. There are many such islands in the Pacific and elsewhere. The young man was afraid that he will be swept away by the tide while sleeping.

Ban Ki Moon described a variety of different consequences of climate change ranging from the melting glaciers in the Andes and the Alps to miles and miles of devastated virgin forest and peat land in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. The question which he asked was simple yet so powerful "Is this the future we want?" a world of out-of-control climate change and a devastating scarcity of vital resources? A world divided bitterly between rich and poor, and the vulnerable and the privileged? Or do we want a sustainable future that fulfils the promise of the United Nations Charter? He confirmed that the answer is clear, even if the exact path is not.

Thereafter President Jacob Zuma, the President of the Republic of South Africa, took the stage and stated that there is a need to make a decision here in Durban, a decision that will take in consideration both present and future needs. President Zuma stressed that there is a need to agree on the adoption of the 2nd commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol as well as the possibility of enhanced mechanisms and the eligibility of participation within that. Such an agreement should entail the adoption of an amendment of Annexure B of the Kyoto Protocol, with re-assurances that Parties will implement the amendment domestically by the end of 2012. Also, that parties must agree on the formalization and implementation of the mitigation pledges of developed countries and the rules of comparability between the pledges of those Parties of the Kyoto Protocol and those Parties outside the Kyoto Protocol. President Zuma said that the rules to assure comparability need to be finalized as soon as possible and an agreement on adaptation, the establishment of the Green Climate Fund, finance, technology transfer and capacity building must also be part of the agreement in Durban.

After President Zuma the COP 17 President declared the High Level Segment officially open. An impressive list of Heads of State from Africa spoke including Mr. Meles Zenawi the Prime of Ethiopia , Mr. Ali Bongo the President of Gabon, and Mr Denis Sassou Nguesso the President of the Republic of Congo. Mr Sprent Dabwido the president of Nauru. and Prince Albert II, the Head of State of Monaco also addressed the delegates.

After the High-level Segment I am planning to attend the President informal stock taking between 6pm and 7pm and then I will call it a day- though meetings will no doubt stretch into the night.

The support of SMART Agriculture and forests at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP17) in Durban, South African, in order to promote eucalyptus in the water catchment areas is of great concern to the Green Belt Movement (GBM).

We work with women at the grassroots in order to conserve the environment and improve livelihoods. However, eucalyptus plantations do the opposite and negatively affect water resources, biodiversity, community health, security and local economies. Specifically, eucalyptus plantations deplete water resources, reduce biodiversity, increase flooding, reduce nutrient cycling, affect soil properties and compete with crops for growth resources.

The bottom line is that these plantations are not forests; they are monocultures that destroy any competing flora in their path and create an environment unsuitable for most fauna. They cannot be the solution that grassroots communities are looking for in order to adapt to climate change. In fact, grassroots communities’ survival is threatened by these plantations because they are incapable of providing essential environmental services that supports local livelihoods. One of the most important ecosystem services that indigenous forests provide is the regulation of climate and rainfall patterns. Efforts to justify these plantations for economic reasons fail to recognize this fundamental incompatibility and the inability of exotic plantations to provide the essential environmental services, without which communities cannot survive.

We need a holistic ecosystem management for food production, biodiversity, water and soil conservation by grass root communities.

The poorest and most vulnerable in society, including women and children, need to be protected from climate change. However, their issues are far removed from the negotiations at COP17. The negotiations are instead opening doors for damaging agricultural practices which reduces food crops and makes grassroots communities even more vulnerable. GBM does not believe that life should be sold or negotiated in a stock market. The governments and development agencies need to think of what they need to stop doing rather than what they need to do. They need to go back to the drawing board and re-analyze what worked in the past and upscale traditional practices to help grassroots communities to build resilience. Supporting local coping strategies alone is not sufficient to adapt to climate change. The underlying causes of vulnerability must be addressed. Therefore, understanding vulnerability of grassroots communities as well as social and environmental sustainability is critical at all scales from the local to the international in order to shift development pathways and effectively adapt to Climate Change.

The Green Belt Movement delegation has been in Durban attending the COP 17 for the past one week. Unfortunately, there has not been much progress at the negotiation front. We have been anxiously watching as the world leaders have started to arrive – hopefully to help resolve the outstanding issues, that include the post Kyoto Protocol commitments which expires in 2012 and the Green Carbon Fund, among others such as the issues related to equity, intellectual property technology transfer (IPRs) and trade.

The Green Belt Movement experience at the grassroots level has revealed that the rural poor communities in Africa continue to be the worst hit by the severe impacts of climate change leading to loss of lives and livelihoods of people who have contributed so little to the prevailing catastrophic situation. As floods, extreme conditions of drought, water and food shortage intensify in Africa, the COP17 discussions over the past week seem to have forgotten the urgency to protect these communities from being pushed further into extreme conditions of poverty. Instead, the negotiations have been overtaken by the developed countries’ agenda to shoulder the burden of reducing global emissions onto developing countries.

As the global political leaders arrive, we hope that they will come together to agree on a favorable fate of the Kyoto Protocol – a second Kyoto Protocol commitment period that legally takes major emission reduction commitments from the developed nations.
We also hope that COP17 will start the long awaited Green Carbon Fund. Starting the fund in Durban will not be enough, though. The fund will benefit the rural communities only if sufficient money has been deposited to help them adapt and mitigate against the adverse impacts of climate change. Until then, this will remain to be an empty cooking pot!

We are calling upon our global leaders in Durban to act, act now, and act decisively towards ambitious, fair, binding commitments.

A presentation at the climate change talks in Durban by GBM focused on our efforts to rehabilitate the Aberdares and Mt. Kenya water towers in Kenya. Senior project officer, Mercy Karunditu, highlighted the great importance of mobilizing community consciousness and action towards community-led adaptation and mitigation activities.

Communities in the mountain catchments have risen to the challenge to restore and protect their forest ecosystems. She acknowledged the hard work, diligence and patience and process that the communities give towards the rehabilitation, conservation and management of their forests and community lands and farms.

GBM’s 10 step approach was developed from experiences on the ground and has proved to be successful in community mobilization for action. However the GBM’s community based climate change projects have faced huge challenges that have been captured in The Green Belt Movement Forest Initiatives report. Guidance, governance, consultation capacity building on roll-out and management is critical to successful establishment of the projects.

Prof Karanja – Executive Director, GBM highlighted among other issues the fact that the carbon offsetting needs to change there has to be a mechanism that establishes clearly that the buyers of carbon are reducing on their emissions before they can engage in the carbon market.

Last week the Green Belt Movement (GBM) and GBM’s technical partners Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC) hosted panel discussion on the impact climate finance projects from a grassroots perspective.

We started with a minute’s silence for our founder Wangari Maathai who sadly passed away in September this year. It was a poignant moment – Wangari had planned to speak out at COP17 about the challenges of implementing forest carbon projects. Wangari founded GBM over thirty years ago with a prescience of what we now face, and how environmental degradation was already making the lives of rural women in Kenya a struggle.

Wangari became the first environmentalist and first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004; she was a fearless campaigner for women’s rights and the environment. Wangari used to say how humble she felt because we need the trees, but they do not need us. My colleague, Mercy Karunditu, spoke about the work that Wangari started with grassroots women when she founded GBM in 1977. Mercy explained: “conservation and protection of Kenyan water towers is doable with the grassroots communities if only they are guided, advised and allowed to own the process. This way they are able to link improved livelihoods with environmental conservation.” Mercy works with communities to reforest the Aberdares and Mt Kenya mountains– some of the most critical water catchment areas in Kenya – producing water and hydropower for most of the population. However the restoration sites are under heavy pressure from overgrazing, charcoal burning and other unsustainable forest practices. Since 2006 GBM has been trialling climate finance projects- under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and others.

The reality of delivering a project with communities planting indigenous trees are highlighted in our Community Forest Climate Initiatives reported launched at the event. Community participation and biodiversity are some areas of concern when implementing a forest carbon project- from our perspective these are fundamental to a project that would address climate change. Current technical requirements mean it is unlikely community groups, without support from NGOs with technical capacity, would be able to start up a climate finance project. Furthermore, from GBM’s experience, until governments put in place strong forest governance, carbon projects and REDD projects will be unlikely to succeed. Therefore these projects will remain in the hands of private companies and consultants, rather than being vested in rural communities who live in and/or rely on these forests for their livelihoods.

GBM’s Prof Karanja said: “If we continue with carbon offsetting – where polluters are able to offset their emissions through buying credits- Africa, Asia and South America will become hewers of wood and drawers of water. We need clear identifiable indicators of reduction of emissions from the major polluters before they can enter the carbon buying market in the south.”

We started the event with Constance Okollet of Climate Wise Women who spoke of the extreme drought and floods that hit villages in her home area since 2007 – the Tororo district of Eastern Uganda. Constance spoke of how women and their families lost everything in floods and then starved as a severe drought followed. She explained how they first thought that God was angry with them- what else could cause such devastation, later they understood that this was climate change. The stark realities of how vulnerable villagers are to extreme weather events makes uncomfortable listening. This is what we need to keep at the forefront in our minds as we urge governments to commit at COP17 to robust, scientifically sound and time-specific global action.

See this blog in its original context on the Practical Action blog.