Mali
Climate change impacts
Au Mali, les gens dépendent absolument de l’agriculture, et l’agriculture dépend absolument du climat. Or, cette dynamique essentielle de la vie au Mali devient de plus en plus précaire. La diminution de la pluviométrie au cours des dernières décennies a dévasté le paysage surtout aride et semi-aride du pays; les périodes de forte sécheresse ont à leur tour provoqué de graves famines. Bien que la pluie et les récoltes aient été quelque peu meilleures ces dernières années, le changement climatique fait que les Maliens doivent regarder la sécheresse comme une réalité future, et non comme unemenace passagère. Avec un climat plus chaud et une pluviométrie réduite et variable, cette nation, qui se débat déjà avec la pauvreté, la désertification et une démographie en expansion, aura de graves problèmes.
Pour plus d'informations sur ces impacts du changement climatique, continuez à lire la section sur le Mali dans le rapport de Les Amis de la Terre International, Changement climatique: les voix des populations affectées par le changement climatique.
It takes only 31 days for the average Canadian to produce as much greenhouse gases as the average Malian will produce over the course of the entire year. Therefore, January 31st (31 days into the year) is "Climate Change Impacts in Mali Day."
“In Mali, people are absolutely dependent on agriculture, and agriculture is absolutely dependent on the climate. But this central dynamic of Malian life is becoming ever-more tenuous. Reduced rainfall in recent decades has devastated Mali’s largely arid and semiarid landscape by causing periods of severe drought, which in turn triggered severe famines. And although rainfall and harvests have improved somewhat in recent years, climate change means that Malians must regard drought as a future reality, not a passing threat. A hotter climate with reduced and shifting rainfall will bring a severe challenge to a nation already grappling with poverty, desertification and a growing population.”
For more information on these climate change impacts, continue reading the section on Mali in the Friends of the Earth International report, “Climate Change: Voices from communities affected by climate change.”
Story
"Moh Mariko was not sure what year she was born, since it isn’t important and no one pays attention to such things in her village in southern Mali. 'I was born in the year when there was a lot of rain,' she says. (Her government ID said it was 1945.)
Rain, that’s the important thing in the Sahel. When there is none, people suffer terribly. They can’t grow crops to feed themselves, and they can’t grow cotton to sell for cash, so they can’t support their families with enough food, medicine, and clothes and books and school fees for their children.
It’s a tough life in the Sahel because the amount of rainfall varies from one year to the next. This makes the threat from climate change even greater."
Read the rest of Moh’s story in the Boston.com article, "In Mali, farmers grapple with climate change."
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