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Drying threatens farmers and fishermen in Mali's green delta

by AlertNet correspondent | Thomson Reuters Foundation
Friday, 17 September 2010 15:45 GMT

By Soumaila T. Diarra

YOUWAROU, Mali (AlertNet) - A rich river delta that more than a million herders, farmers and small fishermen depend on in central Mali could disappear within 20 years as a result of climate change and growing competition for water resources, experts in Mali warn.

The inland Niger Delta, a network of lakes and floodplains that border the Niger River south of the Sahara Desert, is a key source of water, fodder and fish for people living in the area. But scarcer rainfall and plans for an expansion of upriver dams in the region mean the delta is gradually drying up.

"The livelihoods of one and half million people are affected by continuous lack of rainfall and severe cuts in the flooding areas of the inland Niger delta," said Bakary Kone, an environmental expert at the Mali office of Wetlands International, a Netherlands-based non-profit.

The region, which covers around 32,000 square kilometers (12,000 square miles) in the center of Mali, is home to small farmers and herders struggling to cope with a growing range of climate change effects, from scarcer rainfall to greater competition for pasture for their animals.

CONFLICT RISK GROWING

"Because of climate problems, the risk of conflict to control good land is high. Many ponds and rivers that local people use are getting dry because of a lack of rain," said Sambo Barry, who manages a cattle breeding project in Youwarou, one of the delta's affected villages.

The delta, which attracts large number of migratory ducks and other birds, has since the late 1970s gradually lost much of its original forest cover to declining floodwaters and wood cutting. Its stands of bourgou Â? a flood-tolerant millet grass that is highly nutritional for cattle and whose seeds are eaten by people as well - also have declined.

With a lack of rainfall hitting other pastures and crops, bourgou, an indigenous species, is effectively "a bank account" for small farmers in the region, Barry said.

Particularly when rains fail, "bourgou is one of the main crops farmers like to produce," he said.

Drying weather has also had an impact on the delta's birds and fish stocks. Poaching of birds Â? one of the few ways available to raise income Â? has worsened, and farmers and fishermen unable to make a living around drying lakes in their own areas have surged into the delta to try fishing there, said Mory Diallo a Wetlands International researcher.

And worse may be ahead as a growing number of dams Â? including the proposed Fomi Dam in Guinea Conakry - divert water from the river and the delta region.

The region has already seen a reduction in water flow from the Selinque dam upstream in Mali.

"More flood reduction means more farmers losing their land and tougher pressure on the resources," Kone said.

The surge in fishermen casting nets in the delta has been a particular problem, said local ethnic Bozo residents, who once had near-exclusive rights to fish in the delta.

"Over fishing is destroying some species of fish. In the past Bozo people were the only fishermen. It's not the case now," said Nouhoum Te Tiaw, a farmer in Youwarou.

After the flooding season, fishermen from throughout Mali now come to the delta's main lakes and disregard fishing rules established by local people, he said.

"They use forbidden fishing nets that have drastic consequences on fish populations," Tiaw said. "And we cannot stop them because they get authorization from state representatives."

Non-profit groups including Wetlands International have worked with local groups to try to stem some of the problems, including poaching of birds and cutting of the delta's remaining trees. Under one program, women are given loans, which they then repay by planting trees, Diallo said.

Soumaila T. Diarra is a freelance journalist based in Mali.

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