Biodiversity and climate change more than ever at the heart of France’s commitments

Since the COP 21, France has continued to be at the forefront of international negotiations on climate change and has been one of the main governmental advocates in linking climate change with biodiversity and ecosystems preservation. Paris has indeed hosted in May this year the 7th session of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), which conclusions are very clear: “climate change is a direct driver that is increasingly exacerbating the impact of other drivers on nature” and the loss of diversity in ecosystems “poses a serious risk to global food security by undermining the resilience of many agricultural systems to threats such as pests, pathogens and climate change”.

As President Emmanuel Macron said following the release of the IPBES report, what is at stake is “the very emergence of new inequalities that will be the result of threats on our biodiversity”.

In line with the conclusions of IPBES, France has made a number of strong commitments at the national, European and international levels. For instance France is the only EU member state willing to fully forbid the use of glyphosate by 2021 and having adopted a national strategy to combat imported deforestation. France has also been hosting major international negotiations and will continue to do so, as the World Congress on Agro-forestry, in May 2019, the World Congress of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, in Marseille in 2020 or the World Congress of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movement, in Rennes in 2020.

In Tanzania, this commitment of the French government is well reflected in the new financial support of the Embassy to a five-year project on agro-ecology with the objective of improving sustainable rural livelihoods of smallholder farmers. 1 million dollars will be provided by the French government to support 6000 smallholder farmers in Mtwara region, through a holistic agro-ecology approach:

1. Increase agro-ecological production and productivity through training of farmers.

2. Improve farmers’ capacity to generate net income through productive agro-ecological value chains.

3. Strengthen farmers’ organizations and increase the accountability of umbrella organizations.

4. Increase the validation and documentation of locally-adapted agro-ecological practices to support advocacy for agro-ecology with all stakeholders.

This approach will also give the farmers access to national and international markets of organic products while ensuring their resilience to climate change and the preservation of biodiversity.

This multi-dimensional project is co-financed and implemented by the non-governmental organization SWISSAID in partnership with a variety of local actors: Sustainable Agriculture Tanzania (SAT), Tanzania Organic Agriculture Movement (TOAM), Tanzania Alliance for Biodiversity (TABIO), Tanzania Forest Conservation Group (TFCG), Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETHZ).

In the same spirit, the French Embassy also co-financed the first international conference on the use, regulation and health effects of pesticides in Africa hold in Arusha, 28th-31th of May. The experts underline the health-related hazards caused by the toxic pesticides used in the agriculture. These experts urged the donors, as World Bank, IMF, African Union and the governments in Africa, to implement the “Arusha call for action” to prevent the negative impacts of pesticides on health and environment.

Majority of Tanzanians need to understand concept of agro-ecology seen as one of the key strategies taken by French Embassy in countering interconnected issues of climate change and loss of biodiversity.

In doing so, The Citizen conducted an interview with Co-director of Sustainable Agriculture Tanzania (SAT), Janet Maro a pioneering actor in the field of agro-ecology in Tanzania and one of the main implementing organizations of the Agro-ecology project and these were her responses from the interview.

How would you explain what agro-ecology is?

Agro-ecology is a sustainable development approach that is specifically based on bottom-up processes, helping to deliver contextualized solutions to local problems. Agro-ecological innovations are based on the co-creation of knowledge, combining science with the traditional, practical and local knowledge of farmers. It is also based on the principles of permaculture and the use of natural techniques (chemicals-free), using what is directly available in your surrounding environment while, at the same time, preserving it.

What role does agro-ecology play in the context of climate change?

Through biomass preservation and agroforestry, the agro-ecological approach has a huge potential in the long-term to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which is the number one cause of global warming that ultimately leads to climate change effects. Besides these mitigation effects, agro-ecology also provides tools to adapt to climate variability, through the use of local and traditional practices that are best suited to local soil, water, rainfall and gene pool (local manure and mulching, local seeds, etc.). Finally, the development of integrated ecosystems and diversification of land use (mixture of annual crops, crops and livestock, etc.) participate to soils fertility and ensure in turns soils and crops resilience to climate change. Tanzania is one of the countries that are most at risk from the effects of climate change in Africa and it is therefore essential to prepare ourselves to it. Already we see Mount Kilimanjaro snow melting at an alarming speed and natural calamities like tsunami, floods and cyclones are intensifying and their frequencies of occurrence are increasing.

In the specific context of Tanzania, what makes this project on agro-ecology so strategic?

This project is strategic in many ways:

- It helps smallholder farmers to increase their productivity and yields through affordable techniques,

- It enhances the resilience of smallholder farmers to climate change, which is particularly important in a context of erratic weather patterns (long droughts followed by heavy rainfalls),

- It enhances food security in the mid and long-terms,

- It also aligns with the government vision of industrialization for 2025 as it promotes processing and value addition and integrates smallholder farmers into national value chains.

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