Poor communities get help with climate adaptation:floating gardens

good article

The story of Rahman Shaq's family creates inspiration to the villages and relatives whose cropland have become water land. Before 2000 this family was economically solvent. Over the first three years of flooding they became poor to poorer; even their house and assets were washed away. There was no hope. But the floating garden and duck rearing nowadays increases their confidence for sustainability.

How is the climate changing in this part of Bangladesh? Rahman Shaq answers: "[Over the] last ten years the climate has abruptly changed here. Before, we could not understand the changes, but now [we are] facing so many difficulties, [and] many new diseases also."

While visiting his water logged land by boat, Rahman Shaq explains the climate changes. "Even my forefathers can't remember flooding on this scale. That's why we set up home here. If I'd known growing up that there was such a risk of flooding I would never have built a house here. Now half of the year [there's] nothing [we] can do -- we can not cultivate; but before we did three times per year.

"Each year the water level is rising, [and the] duration of water logging also is increasing. In 2000, our homes were flooded for 14 days. In 2003 it was a month. I fear this year the flood waters will stay for six months. It is now expected in [the] near future, we may be flooded for [the] whole year."

In this way the inhabitants on the bank of the Kopotakho River are living with and adapting to climate change. And they are using local knowledge in other ways to prepare for more disruptions.

To protect from storms like Cyclone Sidr, which killed thousands of Bangladeshis in November, house structures have been reinforced with the help of local NGOs. Within limited abilities, rural dwellers are making preparations and adapting spontaneously to face flooding each year. They try to make their homes as water-tight as possible. They put wood for cooking up in the roof or somewhere dry. They store dried foods to eat during floods.

Rahman Shaq's desire? "If we could make [a] fish farm in logged water, [that] would be [a] good income source."

*Shahjahan Siraj is an online journalist and multimedia designer. He is founder of Machizo, a Dhaka-based multimedia and development organization. This article was the winning entry in OneWorld's Citizen Journalism Awards on the topic: "How developing countries are adapting or preparing to adapt to the impacts of global climate change." The contest was run in conjunction with the citizen journalism Web site Helium.com.

yes, I didn't post this because I thought it was a new idea. It was posted to emphasize that these types of gardens and other ideas can now be used to help areas of the world susceptible to flood and other effects adapt to climate change in a natural way.

From the article:

"Delegates of the conference stressed, among other measures, the need to use simple, low-cost technologies to enable poor communities to cope with climate change."

Yes and this is the one beautiful thing about natural farming and allowing the farmers and inhabitants in these areas have the vision to enact solutions.These agro chemical fake seed companies employ the same methods across the board. They do not know the land, and they do not understand that what may work for one area would not work for another. Biodiversity is the key to our continued survival, and employing time tested methods to provide for our survival is what we need most now. The people who live there have a wealth of knowledge about the land and environment you can't get in a test tube.

...It is great to see people doing what the Aztecs did thousands of years ago...what a Heaven we would awaken to daily if people would have watched and learned...instead of fearing and destroying...in the past and in the present...and more than likely..in the future...Golden Ruler....Will

From the article:

A new global initiative will generate and share know how on strategies to help the world's poorest and most vulnerable communities adapt to the impacts of climate change.

The Global Initiative on Community Based Adaptation to Climate Change was announced by Saleemul Huq, senior fellow at the UK-based International Institute for Environment Development (IIED), at an international conference on community-based adaptation to climate change in Dhaka, Bangladesh yesterday (24 February).

It will be made up of representatives of donor agencies, research institutes and nongovernmental organisations from 50 countries, including the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies and the IIED.

The initiative will support an online platform, Community Based Adaptation Exchange, where stakeholders can share experiences and information about the kind of adaptation strategies that work best — and could be replicated and scaled-up elsewhere. They will also hold a number of conferences to share best practice, with the first in Tanzania in September 2009.

Delegates of the conference stressed, among other measures, the need to use simple, low-cost technologies to enable poor communities to cope with climate change.

But adaptation should not focus excessively on short-term "palliative" adaptation strategies that yield immediate results but might not be sustainable in the long run, warned Ian Burton, professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, Canada, and scientist emeritus at the Meteorological Service of Canada.

"It is important to avoid maladaptation or adaptation that will make the situation worse in the long term as we are focused on what will work in the short term," Burton said.

Potential adaptation techniques include crop varieties that can tolerate drought, floods and high salinity; drip and other irrigation techniques to conserve scarce water; building storm and cyclone shelters; changing crop growing cycles; and diversifying from crops to fish, shrimp, crab and livestock farming.

The meeting heard about a range of successful experiences from across Africa and Asia. An unusual example from Bangladesh is "floating gardens" — using a base of aquatic weeds to grow vegetables — which allow cultivation in waterlogged and flooded areas.

In Nepal, local farmers are using their knowledge of traditional varieties and neglected and underutilised crops to breed suitable plants and improve incomes.

And in Lower Ouémé valley in Benin, communities are seeking solutions such as cultivating fast-growing crops in dried areas of swamp forests.