Resist at the epicenter of climate change
Temperatures are expected to rise by up to 2 degrees in Mauritania, where young people live between the hope of following their people and a future at sea.
Trarza (Mauritania)Unlike the idea one might have of countries like Mauritania, from which the main migratory routes towards the Canary Islands emerge, a large part of the young people in this country do not want to leave their homes and are looking for solutions to continue living where they were born. “You always have to have hope”, says Yacine from a multipurpose room where she was able to watch the documentary Ebre Trarza, in which he has participated. The project, which will be seen soon at festivals in Catalonia, summarizes more than a year of letter exchange between young people from the Trarza region, in Mauritania, and from the Ebro delta, two territories that are experiencing the effects of climate change but from which their younger inhabitants are resisting leaving. “If the Delta dies, we will die with it,” says Jordi Parés, of the Sediments Association in the same documentary.
Trarza and the Ebro Delta are separated by about 5,000 kilometers, but they are connected because both are part of a delta: the first, at the mouth of the Ebro River, and the second, of the Senegal River. “What has impacted me the most [about the documentary] is seeing that we can decide whether to stay here or leave, but they are also threatened,” says Yacine Fall, a 19-year-old from Garak, a village in southern Mauritania, a member of the Association Initiative for Environmental Education (AIEM). She is surprised that, despite the harshness of climate change, people from the Ebro region do not consider leaving their land.
On both sides of Garak, the threat is evident. On the one hand, the Sahara has grown between 11% and 18% during the last hundred years and also advances towards the Mediterranean. On the other hand, the river has changed: its flow is now unstable, due to torrential rains and the dams that have been built on it. Selma Fall, 23, also from Garak, believes that "hope must be maintained and we must try to leave the territory to learn and bring new ideas to the town".
Young people like Yacine or Selma have taken action. They are part of an organization that meets every Sunday to clean the town, build bins, and run community campaigns to plant trees in the area. “I joined the association to help develop my town; lately it's been very hot and the seasons have changed – explains Yacine–. But I don't plan on leaving here”.
Slowing down the desert's advance
In Mauritania, they have not stood idly by. Abderrahmane Ndongo, director of the Mauritanian delegation of the African think tank Initiative for Prospective Agricultural and Rural Development (IPAR), highlights the state's effort to fix dunes, plant trees or grasses, which include various types of cereals and pastures. Mauritania also participates in the Great Green Wall, a project that includes the entire Sahel and consists of planting millions of trees to restore 8,000 kilometers of land, and thus slow down the advance of the desert. This project was initiated in 2007, includes 11 countries, and should be completed by 2030. “What we are now promoting are soil conservation and restoration actions such as half-moons, which serve to slow down water runoff and fix rainwater,” adds Ndongo.
Climate change has directly impacted the country's main economic activity, agriculture, and consequently, the future of many young people. According to data from theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), climate change has reduced agricultural yields by 34% on the African continent. Masamba Dambou is a 75-year-old farmer from Garak. “What we used to do, we can no longer do. The agricultural calendar has changed; we have to change our methods – he explains. Before, there weren’t these problems of heat or lack of rain,” he adds from his field in Boda, a very small town through which the river flows. He protects himself from the heat with a straw hat and prepares his field cultivated with pumpkins.
He is one of the farmers who have had to leave Garak due to lack of water and move a little closer to the river, which does not only mean moving a few kilometers; in this case, a new difficulty is added: access to land. According to data from the World Bank, only 0.4% of Mauritanian territory is cultivable, and furthermore, the sale of land to large foreign agricultural entrepreneurs is increasing. The result: less and less land to cultivate.
It's the end of June and the thermometer is showing April temperatures: over 40 degrees. Both farmers and the population are complaining about the high temperatures and how they prevent them from living a normal life. “We used to live in a good climate; there was a calendar we could follow. The hot season, the winter, the drought… but now we don't understand anything; the climate is not stable and we can't organize ourselves.” The poor harvests and difficulties accessing land have directly impacted the future prospects of many young people, who have left the village to go to the capital, Nouakchott, or Nouadhibou, in the north. “There are young people from the village who have left for Europe because there is no work here…” explains Dambou. Africa is the continent that contributes least to the worsening of climate change, but it is the one that suffers its consequences the most.
Mauritania is the gateway to the Sahara Desert from the Atlantic. It is also the westernmost edge of the Sahel, a semi-arid belt of 5,000 kilometers and over 450 million people, considered one of the areas most affected by climate change and with fewer resources to adapt to it. According to the United Nations, it is here where the temperature can rise up to 2 degrees, unlike other regions of the world, where it is considered to be 1.5 degrees. It is not clear how long the hope of young people like Yacine and Selma will last.
This report is part of the project "Audiovisual Epistolary Ebre-Trarza: Youth for Social and Climate Justice" by the Nadir Audiovisual and Education Association, and has received the support of the DevReporter 2019 Grant, driven by the funding of the project "Frame, voice, report!", by the European Union, the Barcelona City Council and the Catalan Agency for Development Cooperation.