The human cost of climate change in southern Madagascar

According to the World Bank, Madagascar has seen a 10 percent increase in temperature and a 10 percent decrease in rainfall in the past 50 years, with a devastating impact on the farming and fishing communities. Years of drought in the south of the country have left people there facing chronic hunger and high rates of malnutrition.

According to the World Bank, Madagascar has seen a 10 percent increase in temperature and a 10 percent decrease in rainfall in the past 50 years, with a devastating impact on the farming and fishing communities. Years of drought in the south of the country have left people there facing chronic hunger and high rates of malnutrition. In this film, we look at the charcoal industry in the south, and discover how the prolonged drought has driven farmers - whose barren fields can no longer support them - into the forests in search of a livelihood. In a country that relies almost exclusively on charcoal as a cooking fuel, wood is one of the few resources left for them to exploit.

Watch the film about charcoal production and WWF's work here

In Madagascar, an estimated 65 percent of the population of 19 million live on little more than US$1 a day and the country has long been plagued by political crises. Climate change adds insult to injury. Farther south, communities are under siege from the relentless march of sand; dunes sweep in on the wind and claim the void left by farmland choked dry by years of drought. In villages such as Androka, the sand and floods have forced hundreds of people to flee. Some have taken refuge in new towns, but remain hostage to the ravages of climate. Just outside New Androka, a farmer sweats over the rather pathetic looking maize crop that he has managed to coax out of the sand.

Watch the film about shifting sands here

Source: IRIN humanitarian news and analysis
In collaboration with WWF MWIOPO and WWF Toliara

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Temoignages de Madagascar

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