EJF calls for action on climate refugees at Hay Festival

June 5th 2010
On a sunny Saturday morning at this year’s internationally renowned Hay Festival, Rosie Boycott led an event to discuss the problems and solutions to the human impact of climate change with EJF Director Steve Trent, EJF Patron Benedict Allen and Cafédirect’s Anne MacCaig.

Steve discussed what we have already seen globally in terms of the human impact of climate change, describing the impacts of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina in the USA. Considering the United States is arguably the country best equipped to respond to natural disasters, the hurricane killed almost 2,000 people and forced around 800,000 people from their homes and land.

This was compared to the impacts of a hurricane in a country less equipped and able to respond was 2008’s Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar which caused a reported 138,000 fatalities and rendered millions homeless.

Steve used these examples to demonstrate the need for global action in the form of a legally-binding framework. A framework that would enable countries, especially in the developing world, to effectively respond and adapt to the inevitable effects of climate change such as increased and more intense storms and hurricane seasons, desertification and sea-level rise.

Benedict Allen, international explorer and EJF’s new Patron, entertained the audience with humorous tales of his encounters with some of the world’s remotest communities in the Amazon, Papua New Guinea and Siberia.

But despite the humour of his storytelling there was an underlying serious message of what stands to be lost in terms of culture, knowledge and livelihoods if we don’t address the already seen impacts of climate change.

He recounting the ingrained knowledge of the landscape passed down through generations. How in the Amazon young children had humiliated him with their hunting prowess and astounded him with their knowledge of medicinal properties of plants. How the seemingly easy task of grazing sheep in Siberia depends critically on the timing of melting snow.

Describing his experience of the impact of climate change he told how members of Amazon tribes he spent time with have been forced to the cities. There they have been reduced to begging and prostitution while their invaluable knowledge of their landscape is wasted and unable to be passed down to the next generation.

Benedict insisted the people he has come across on his travels do not want to leave their homes or homeland but climate change means they will need assistance in order to be able to adapt to the changing environment. In providing assistance however, he urged that these remote communities need to be listened to for their wisdom of the their landscape in order to help them effectively adapt.

Anne MacCaig, CEO of Cafédirect introduced their programme AdapCC which has worked to understand the varying effects that climate change is already having on their producer communities around the world.

The AdapCC programme helps Cafédirect’s producers adapt to changes by planting food crops alongside tea or coffee in order to subsidise the income with food they can eat. The programme encourages fuel efficiency in order to reduce deforestation, Co2 emissions and enabling women to spend less time collecting wood. The programme offers on the ground small scale solutions to encroaching deserts, increased rainfall and other climatic changes which threaten producers incomes and homes.

Chaired by Rosie Boycott the panel gave a strong case for the need to address the human impact of climate change and with EJF in particular calling for a global legally-binding framework.