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Keeping the focus on climate change

Tuesday, 12 February 2008

JUAN Francisco Trujillio is wading through the rough waters of the raging river Chilama.
Dressed in shorts that are nearly submerged in the foamy swell, the 16-year-old battles on. Eventually across, Juan dries off, puts on his uniform and heads to school in the rural village of Caserio.
During the rainy season, however, flooding cuts the Trujillio family off from the village. Juan explains how he checks the water level in the river to determine how safe it is to cross.
“There is a large boulder in the middle of the river,” he says.
“If the water is over this boulder, I know it is too dangerous to cross.”
In 2007, the issue of Climate Change was such a hot topic, it was considered cool to be involved.
In June, the G8 leaders discussed it in Germany. In July, rock stars rolled onto their carbon neutral bandwagons to perform at Live Earth, a global gathering on seven continents of the world’s most climate conscious musicians.
Al Gore won a Nobel Prize for his climate change efforts and his documentary, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, became a worldwide hit.
At home, we introduced a National Climate Change strategy and voted the Greens into power for the first time ever.
Now as we move into 2008, climate change is no longer on the front pages, yet it continues to have the most severe impact on the poorest people in the world.
Trocaire’s 24-hour fast, which takes place on February 22-23, aims to keep the issue of climate change in people’s minds and focuses on Juan’s home country of El Salvador.

Throughout Central America, flooding and water scarcity are ongoing problems, particularly in El Salvador, a tiny country in Central America bordering the Pacific Ocean between Guatemala and Honduras.
A quarter the size of Ireland and with a population of almost six million, natural disasters have been unkind to El Salvador.
In October 1998, Hurricane Mitch battered Central America for two weeks, killing 11,000 people mostly in Nicaragua and Honduras and destroying many homes in El Salvador. Two earthquakes in 2001 killed over 1,000 people and caused massive damage to homes and livelihoods.
We’re walking across empty plastic bottles, broken wood and the soles of lost shoes, in what used to be Guatemala but due to the movement of the river, it is now El Salvador.
We are with Ana Joaquina Borjas who lost her home and everything in it when Hurricane Mitch struck.
“I only saved the children, nothing else,” she explains.
“We were homeless. We lived under a tree for a month and then a lady gave us some land so we could build a house.”
As Ana speaks, her son, Miltom (5), and grandson, Manuel (3), are making a castle from the debris. Three generations together facing an uncertain future.
UNES (the El Salvadorian Ecological Unit), an environmental NGO based in San Salvador and supported by Trocaire, began to make the link between climate change and the frequency and intensity of tropical storms in 1997/98 when the El Nino effect was felt with greatest severity.
There were widespread crop losses and famine throughout the country that came at the same time as a drop in coffee prices, causing additional crises for the economy.
Coffee is one of the principal sources of employment for people in rural areas, particularly at harvest time when lots of people work on the coffee plantations.
In recent years the effects of El Nino and La Nina have caused changes in rainfall patterns, a loss in bio-diversity and an increase in epidemics of diseases such as malaria, dengue fever and tuberculosis.
“When people talk about climate change, they talk about a problem that will come in 2100 and they talk about the North Pole and Antartica, but climate change is a problem now in El Salvador which has to be addressed,” says Yvette Aguillera from UNES.
In 2000, UNES began to question whether they could lay the blame for climate change totally at nature’s door.
They identified the connection between rural poverty and environmental destruction.
UNES works with rural communities, educating them that they are not the victims of disasters, but they can act in reducing the impact of disasters by reducing river pollution and halting deforestation.
There is a saying in the district of San Jose, a suburb of San Salvador, that climate change is not ordered by God but by people, especially those with a lot of money.
Poor people who were displaced during the civil war populate the village.
Most of them work in sweat shops, as domestic servants or on the land. Families here use 25 per cent of their income to buy drinkable water and the average wage is $158 per month.
Miramar, an exclusive new gated community, overlooks their village of tin shacks and coconut sellers.
Apartments here cost $100,000. The divide between rich and poor is shockingly played out here. The huge billboard ad for Miramar shows pictures of tiled floors, big comfortable beds and beautiful bathrooms.
However, the untreated waste from these expensive bathrooms is going straight into the San Jose river.
In the district of El Presidio, we pass flooded maize fields. The rain is falling in sheets and I’ve given up trying to stay dry.
A rescue team is trying to coax a frightened family out of their flooded home. The water is up to their waists.
A truck passes issuing an emergency, a warning from a tannoy for people to evacuate. Within 20 minutes, the river will burst its banks.
I’m trying to take a photograph of the De Vasques family. It’s difficult to concentrate. The rain is belting down and the tannoy had issued another warning. We must leave in 10 minutes.
The photograph looks wrong. The children are not splashing around enjoying the rain.
Instead, they wear very worried little faces, along with their Wellington boots, faces that suggest they know what might happen next. They might lose everything they own if the rain gets worse.
The Vasques children are not in school. It makes me wonder about Juan. With all the rain falling, the water is surely over the boulder again today.
Trócaire, along with local communities and its partner, have identified areas most at risk from flooding in El Salvador.
They are now working to reduce the risk to people’s lives and their livelihoods in the future through the construction of reservoirs and proper housing; the provision of irrigation and water purification systems; and the implementation of environmental protection projects.

Take part in this year’s Fast on February 22-23 and the money you raise will support this work. Log on to http://www.trocairefast.org or ring lo-call 1850 408 408 for more details.

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