allAfrica.com: Sudan: Of Rats, Stars And Climate Change (Page 1 of 2)

The days are hot and long in Sudan's arid Northern Kordofan State, between North Darfur and Khartoum, where the farmers say droughts have become more intense and frequent in the past few decades as they sip hot chai in Gereigikh village, about 100km northeast of the state capital, El Obied.

Their village was one of 17 in the drought-prone region whose residents were helped to adapt to climate change over a period of six years (1994-2000) in a project funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), a 178-member international financing body, and the United Nations Development Programme - the only such project funded by the GEF in Africa.

The farmers, seated on mats thrown on the hot sand under the burning sun, mull over their understanding of climate change, occasionally breaking into toothy grins. Many lived through the major droughts in 1984 and 1992; older residents also remember the drought of 1976.

"While they might not know what the term 'climate change' means, they know the climate has changed over the years, and eight years later [since the project] they have become resilient enough to face anything," said Abdul Rahim Ali, coordinator of the Sudanese Environmental Conservation Society (SECS) in the region.

Farmers in this region have traditionally relied on rats and the position and brightness of certain stars in the sky to forecast droughts. "When we see the rats gathering food and hiding it in their nests we know there is a drought coming," said Ad-Dukhri Al-Sayed, a community leader in Gereigikh.

In a time-honoured tradition, the farmers followed suit, burying harvests of watermelons - an important source of water for their families and livestock during summer - and their staple grains, sorghum and millet, in storage pits in the ground.

"Drought episodes have increased in both intensity and duration," said Balgis Osman-Elasha, a senior researcher with the Sudanese government's Higher Council for Environment and Natural Resources.

Osman-Elasha, one of the lead authors of a report on adaptation by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said rainfall in the Sahel region had declined since the late 1960s: between 1961 and 1998 Sudan was affected by droughts of varying severity, and during this period there were also localised droughts in 1987, 1989, 1990, 1991 and 1993, mainly in western Sudan (Kordofan and Darfur) and parts of central Sudan.

But the drought of 1980-84, the most severe in the Sahel region, saw family and tribal structures, and traditional practices of resource management and land tenure, break down. "Sections of the country were almost emptied of inhabitants as thousands of people migrated from their villages to refugee camps around towns and cities," said Osman-Elasha.

According to the UN, the 1984 drought affected 8.4 million people in Sudan, and seven years later another drought hit 8.6 million.

Learning new adaptation tricks

Gereigikh's farmers say they have continued storing food underground for the lean season, but since the project they have learnt a few more things about survival, and how to take steps to relieve pressure on the fragile ecosystem and take care of the marginal land available for agriculture.

When we see the rats gathering food and hiding it in their nests we know there is a drought coming

"During the life of the project, the farmers in the participating villages were convinced not to expand horizontally but to concentrate on farming on small patches of land to prevent cutting down trees," said Ahmed Hanafi, who managed the project for the ministry of agriculture for six years.

Villages were asked to allocate a piece of land for grazing only for three to four years to help rejuvenate the soil and maintain a green cover. The 17 villages managed to set aside 418 hectares in six years and have continued to maintain the rangeland. Drought-resistant species were replanted on the grazing land and helped improve the quality of meat and milk, Hanafi said.

The villagers thought the green cover had also had an impact on the ecosystem. "We notice that the rains now start earlier, in June instead of July, and stay longer, until October instead of September," remarked Salih Babkar, the mayor of Gereigikh.

It has been more difficult to dissuade them from using wood and to opt instead for mud to construct their huts. Each wooden hut consumes nine trees, and takes another four to five for maintenance every year.

"After the 1984 drought, laws were passed against cutting down trees in Sudan," said the SECS's Rahim Ali. "People have to buy the wood, which is very expensive - it can cost about $75 to construct three huts" - but a truckload of mud, which can build a room, costs $25, so they only have to buy wood for the roof.

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