BUJUMBURA June 19th (ABP) – In Burundi, climate change affects the different socio-economic sectors of national life, said Jean Marie Sabushimike, Professor at the University of Burundi in the Department of Geographical Sciences of the Environment and Population (SGEP), in an interview given to a check by ABP on Friday June 9, 2023 in Bujumbura, on the theme “Impact of climate change on the socio-economic life of the people of Burundi”.
After recalling that the Burundian economy is essentially based on the agricultural sector, that expert in environmental sciences indicated that in Burundi as elsewhere, climate change affects the agricultural sector. He explained that meteorological events including rainfall deficits and excess rainfall cause losses in terms of agricultural production.
Some plant diseases linked to climate change also lead to the drop in agricultural production, which can cause food insecurity, he underlined.
According to Mr. Sabushimike, food insecurity can be caused by the proliferation of insect pests whose birth is associated with the variation of climatic parameters such as humidity, soil temperature and microorganisms. He also indicated that weather variations greatly affect the health sector, one of the main sensitive sectors of national life. He pointed out that Burundi, like other countries in the region, has experienced certain epidemics such as malaria associated with the increase in temperature. The latter led to the generalization of malaria which, formerly, did not exist.
Professor Sabushimike also pointed out that natural disasters including floods, having led to the massive displacement of the people, lead to the presence of pandemic diseases such as skin diseases, dirty-hand diseases including dysentery, cholera, meningitis and others. “The loss of human lives and the loss of biodiversity are some of the consequences linked to climate change that Burundi is experiencing”, he specified.
According to that expert in environmental sciences, climate change also affects the field of infrastructure in general. “Whenever there are landslides or heavy rains causing flooding, the latter destroy houses and other social infrastructure such as schools, roads, hospitals and others,” he said. He added that those phenomena destabilize the life of the population in general.
Regarding the energy sector, he said that the drying up of dams and rivers has disrupted the supply of electricity in the past years. Thus, he pointed out that the use of load shedding which was observed in the past has caused severe losses to electricity consumers when carrying out their income-generating activities.
He also indicated that the use of Regideso in thermal power plants that consume fuel requiring foreign currency for its import, affects the national economy. The same is true for the water and soil resources necessary for the economic and social development of Burundi, which are subject to strong demographic pressures and overexploitation of the land, he continued to say.
In the education sector, Sabushimike gave the example of the floods in Gatumba, Mutimbuzi commune, where schools were flooded, which disrupted school activities. Some schools have been a place of refuge for the victims of those floods, he noted.
To deal with the situation, that expert made a strong appeal to political decision-makers to ensure that the various environmental protection Codes are well used. In addition, a synergy of other actors such as the private sector, civil society, and the media, is recommended. The people in general are called on to a change of attitude in terms of territorial planning, consumption and fertility, explaining that, the more the demographic pressure on the environment increases, the more the serious impacts of climate change are manifested.
Mrs. Daphrose Minani and Mrs. Marie Kabanyana from Mwendo village in Kayanza commune and province, affirmed at the microphone of Claude Ndayisaba, ABP correspondent in that province, that the harmful effects linked to climate change are a reality.
For Mrs. Minani, “The harvest for the 2023 cropping season A was not good following the rainfall deficit, which caused a drop in production, resulting in famine, poverty, the increase in food prices in the country”.
For her part, Mrs. Kabanyana indicated that the negative impacts linked to climate change in the Kayanza commune are also observed through the floods which lead to the destruction of infrastructure including residential houses and sometimes loss of human life. There are also pandemic animal diseases including Rift Valley fever which has led to the death of several domestic animals but also and above all plant diseases which manifest themselves in some cases, she added.
The inhabitants of the Mugoboka quarter of the Mukaza commune in Bujumbura City Council, are delighted with the start of the rehabilitation works on the banks of the Ntahangwa river. “The collapse of the banks of the Ntahangwa River has caused a large ravine which tends to threaten certain public infrastructures in that locality. Some residents have migrated to other places because their homes were destroyed by landslides on the banks of the Ntahangwa River. Another phenomenon of cracks that destroy infrastructure while causing considerable losses also occurs on the other side of the same river, on the Mutanga North side”, the inhabitants of Mugoboka testified. Those inhabitants deplore that there are certain citizens who make the anarchic exploitation of building materials from that river, or those who continue to build houses without taking into account the relative laws.