I was fortunate to come across a story of African coastal climate change in an article published this week called “West African Coastal Towns Swallowed by Ocean”. Specifically, in relation to this week’s topic of smart building, this article made me think about how difficult it must be to build smart and sustainable coastal protections in the context of abject poverty and government dereliction.
This article caught my eye as I was scrolling through my news feed and I am glad it did because it did a phenomenal job of briefly detailing the lives of members of Ivory Coast community and how they are affected by coastal change on a micro-level. For example, one resident of an Ivory Coast town explained, “There used to be people living here. There used to be coconut trees.” Not only is the beach being eroded, but the economic livelihoods of those who lived in the area were destroyed, as well. For a country with already-low income levels, this is devestating. According to another, “the river mouth is stuck in the sand. We can’t cross with the boat,” he says.
This article also highlighted human influence in the matter. In Grand-Lahou, nearby government dams, as well as the local practice of taking sand to build houses, have exacerbated the issue of coastal degradation. This leaves me wondering how a community is to mitigate coastal damage when they are reliant on sand to build their homes. Similarly, government activity in damming nearby rivers has altered coastal processes, causing further damage to local populations.
Further still, this article highlights how biodiversity is affected by all of the coastal changes. For example, Barthelemy Bemba, director of the Center for Ocean Research in Abidjan, says that in the lagoon, there were mangroves that grow in saltwater. He explains that when the river mouth is closed, the lagoon becomes freshwater and the mangroves die off. The problem is that the mangroves are requisite for biodiversity. If the mangroves die, fishing industry dies as well. This shows that not only is it the physical change to the environment, there are broader biological consequences, as well.
Members of communities that rely on the coastal areas’ health will become climate refugees and be forced to move inland. We hear so much about refugees of violence that we fail to think about climate refugees and how they can move on. This is something I will be thinking about in the coming days.
Reference:
http://www.voanews.com/content/west-african-coastal-towns-swallowed-by-ocean/3417750.html
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