Ndaitwah sounds a warning

CLIMATE change has exacerbated drought, desertification and land degradation that are undermining agriculture in Namibia and in many African countries, the Minister of Environment and Tourism said recently.

‘My country and indeed many African countries are not only subjected to recurrent droughts but also to devastating floods,’ Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah told the 17th session of the Commission on Sustainable Development held in New York earlier this month.She said being a drought-prone country, Namibia has developed reasonable capacity to deal with drought but has yet to develop capacity for managing floods. Drought, desertification and land degradation, said Nandi-Ndaitwah, have also given rise to the phenomenon of invasive species that further render land unproductive.’In addition, as the rainy season draws to an end, veld fires become another challenge to face,’ she said.She said as a response to climate change, Namibia is implementing an integrated sustainable rangeland management and eco-tourism programme.’We are, in other words, contributing to solving a problem we did not create. At the same time we are dismayed that there are those who are undermining our efforts by continuing with unsustainable patterns of production and consumption and emit greenhouse gases unabated,’ Nandi-Ndaitwah said.Meanwhile, a lecturer in agriculture at the University of Namibia, Uparura Kuvare, has said Namibian farming systems are expected to be most affected by climate change because of the country’s over-dependence on rain-fed agriculture.Kuvare presented a paper on climate change and its impact on Namibian farming systems at a workshop in Windhoek last month.