Estratégias locais de adaptação a mudanças climáticas no distrito de Mabalane com recurso a árvores e florestas

Abstract

Mozambique is a country located on the east coast of Africa, in a region vulnerable to extreme events resulting from climate change. Climate change in Mozambique is mainly evidenced by extreme weather events such as prolonged droughts, recurring floods, and intense tropical cyclones. These phenomena have significant impacts on vital sectors, including agriculture, food security, water resources, forests, human settlements, infrastructure, and coastal areas. The loss of ecosystems and their services has cascading and long-term impacts on people around the world, especially for indigenous peoples and local communities who depend directly on ecosystems to meet basic needs. Thus, the need arose to identify local strategies for adapting to climate change, given that, when analyzing the role that ecosystems can play in both mitigating and adapting to climate change, it is possible to ascertain that even non-climate projects and initiatives that use this approach can have direct or indirect positive effects in combating the effects of climate. For this purpose, interviews were conducted with 195 heads of households in the Mabalane district. The data collected benefited from a qualitative and descriptive analysis. In this study, the main climatic events were identified: droughts, floods, inundations, dry spells, heat waves, irregular rainfall, and strong winds. The impacts generated by climate change in the Mabalane district are: increased temperature and reduced rainfall, stronger and more frequent winds, and other factors such as increased incidence of diseases in communities, low humidity, an increase in some pests and a reduction in other types of pests, which consequently trigger other impacts such as: water scarcity for consumption, loss of agricultural crops, livestock deaths, increased incidence of diseases, a reduction in the diversity of fauna species, loss of income sources, reduction in the amount of available wood material, among other impacts such as low-quality charcoal, contamination of drinking water, increased pollution in the community, destruction of forests, reduction in the diversity of flora species, reduction in the diameter of trees, destruction of infrastructure, and job loss. Local strategies for survival and adaptation to climate change in this district include: slaughtering animals for consumption, trade, cultivation in low-lying areas, waiting for the rainy season to begin cultivation, consumption of wild fruits, use of medicinal plants, planting of resistant species, seeking other means of obtaining income, seeking other means of ensuring food security, production and sale of charcoal, production and sale of stakes, production and sale of bricks, assistance provided at the local level and by some NGOs, self-employment.(tradução nossa)