When Climate Change hits Sierra Leone

Our plane was to land at 5:45 Freetown time. But it couldn’t. There had been a very heavy downpour and the tarmac was covered in water. The pilot announced that he would be hovering the Atlantic Ocean for about fifteen minutes so that the tarmac would be cleared off the water. Fifteen minutes past. We were still in the air. It was after 30 minutes that our hearts began to race. There was a deafening silence on board. Everyone was praying silently. Even a pin drop could be heard. To me, it looked like a movie but in this one I was playing a role. I was not just an extra but among the main casts. I was praying too. I was reading all I could remember from my Quranic classes. I almost knelt down like I was in an altar. The wind was heavy outside. We could not only hear it but felt it too. The Plane went up and down, up and down. My heart was beating fast and so was everyone else.

I started thinking about death and all what I had heard in the past about the hereafter. My mind went back to the war and I became hopeful. ‘Yes, I am not going to die,’ I whispered to myself. I then remembered an incident wherein I and colleague journalists had boarded a plane on it first flight in Sierra Leone and the plane almost crashed. That too reenergised my faith that I was not going to die in a plane crash. Our plane was still playing see-saw; going up and coming down. It was after 45 minutes that another announcement came from the pilot. This time it was good news. He was going to land the plane. I could feel the relief in the faces of passengers. For once, passengers could turn and look at each other. Finally, our plane started going down and down and down and finally landed. There was a huge round of applause from passengers. Again I thought I was in a cinema watching a movie which I am part of. ‘Thank you Jesus,’ the lady sitting on my right said. ‘Alhamdullilah,’ the man sitting behind me sighed. I could feel the sense of freedom in the air. Everyone was happy. As we disembarked, everyone was exchanging their 45 minutes experience that seemed like a decade. All because of rain water on the tarmac. I’d used that airport several times before while in Sierra Leone; in the dry season and the rainy season but this incident was a real shock to me and many other passengers. Sierra Leone was experiencing climatic changes resulting to heavy downpour of rain and flooding every part of the country’s lowlands.

That was two years ago. I spent three weeks in Sierra Leone then. On my first week, the King Jimmy Bridge broke. There were reports of landslide at Tengbeh town and Greybush, flooding at Aberdeen and Kroobay in Freetown. Climate change was being made worse by the lack of proper drainage system and environmental considerations by the housing and country planning division of government.

The rainy season that started in May this year, has witnessed some of the country’s worse flood incidents across Sierra Leone and has left several people dead and thousands displaced. The torrential rains are a striking reminder that climate change is indeed real. The Freetown flood was the second major flooding incidents in the country this rainy season. Just a week before, the south and east of the country were also flooded by heavy rains.

Over 70% of of the flood victimsare women and children. According to UNFPA Sierra Leone, most were pregnant women, lactating mothers and under fives.

In Freetown, they are hosted at the national stadium and the Attouga stadium with very little to cater for them. Already, Sierra Leone’s resources have been suppressed by the Ebola outbreak and very little is left to answer to such emergency as the flood. Thankfully, the flood incidents came at a time the country was recovering from the Ebola outbreak and not when it was peaked, since we cannot imagine what impacts flooding could have had on the spread of the Ebola virus.

As I write this article, there are fears that the hydro power dam in Bumbuna, inNorthern Sierra Leone could overflow and leads to flooding. Heavy rains is causing the dam to overflow. According to reports, residents of the town are scared of a supposed flood and have sought refuge at the hilltop of the town. Does this not ring a bell? Incidents like this should surely alert authorities and locals about the effects of our activities on our environment.Allhands must be on deck to face the challenges of climate change.

Even with less industrial activities, Sierra Leone still involves in environmental degradation; using wood for coal, widespread timber trade, deforestation and bush burning. Moreover, lots of pressure is being put on the sea as humans struggle to find a home. The result is slums such as Bormeh, Kroobay and Goderich in the west end of Freetown and Moa wharf and Susan’s bay in the east.While in primary school, we were taught wildlife conservation and environmental protection. Every year we were involved in tree planting activities. What happened to such initiatives?

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) responsible for environmental protection has been engaging communities to adopt measures to combat environmental degradation and prevent some of the impacts of climate change. The agency has been on a nation-wide education but yet their advice and campaigns have not been heeded to. People are still upholding practices and activities that are detrimental to the environment. Moreover, widespread poverty has not helped the campaign. People are not willing to change because they lack alternatives to providing their livelihoods. For instance there is a common practice of burning wood for coal. This is a good business for small entrepreneurs who are mainly poor and uneducated. When I visited the Freetown peninsular forest in 2013, I was told by our guide that a good part of the forest has been destroyed by the burning of forest trees for coal. He also said efforts by the police have proved futile because of widespread corruption; since the coal sellers usually bribe the police guards who are meant to protect the forest from such practice. Report like that shows that the problem of climate change can be manifold.

Recent flooding in the city was mainly as a result of its geographical location. The city like most towns in the country is overlooked by hills. Deforestation due to housing construction on hill tops and the burning of trees for coal, dumping of wastes into the drainages and reduce of surface flow of the gutters through banks of sand bags, sand and stone mining on the hills and coastal areas as well as removal of mangroves are the major causes of flooding in Freetown.

As we approach COP21, recent reports of flooding in Japan, Nigeria and Sierra Leone must bea wakeup call to what we are to expect in the future. Sadly for Sierra Leone, the EPA has predicted drought for the country. There must be plans to face such predictions and women must be at the fore of such plans.

In 2006, when I witnessed the tree planting ceremony pioneered by late Professor Wangari Maathai and the Masai women of Kenya through the Green Peace movement at the Climate Change conference in Nairobi, I did not imagine that one day my beautiful Sierra Leone will be experiencing the devastating impacts of climate change in such a short time.

Meanwhile, appropriate measures need to be considered to tackle the effects of climate change. Carbon sinks should be used to soak up carbon dioxide. This can be achieved through afforestation – establishment of a forest or stand of trees in an area where there was no forest, and reforestation – planting of new forests. Deforestation – clearing of trees; transforming a forest into cleared land should be discouraged and discontinued forthwith. This is a popular practice by the logging industry in nations with large forests interests, like Sierra Leone. Furthermore, the EPA should continue its sensitization of communities about the effects of human activities on the environment. The EPA should also involve community organizations including women’s groups; since women are the most affected by the effects of climate change, to champion tree planting activities to help protect our environment. The government should also work to enforce protection of forests across the country. Government agencies and their partners should work towards finding alternative means of business for charcoal sellers to prevent the continued burning of forest trees for coal.

Finally, all tiers of government, international agencies and development partners are required to increase funding to climate change projects in Sierra Leone for sustainable solution.

Back to my flight, for most people onboard that boeing 737 BA airline to Sierra Leone on that very wet July morning, the incident was a huge turn off. Whenever they think of visiting the country, that incident will always echo in their minds. For many, there is no justification for a delayed landing due to a waterlogged tarmac-all because of the country’s ill preparation for the effects of climatic changes.