ASSIGNMENT

Assignment

Assignment

1) Climate Change; Kenya drought

Ongoing heart-rending stories of starving people in Kenya are highlighting the problem of drought and its causes. Kenya, east Africa's richest nation and a top attraction for tourists who flock to its reserves and parks for safari holidays, is under a severe crisis of poor rains that hits its harvests. The number of people who face starvation is spiralling ever higher: from 2.5 million in December to 4 million now, according to Kenya's minister for emergency operations.

Drought has been a feature of the region, a natural climatic phenomenon. However, two things have changed: deforestation and the emergence of global climate change.

Large scale destruction of forests, where evapo-transpiration from their dense vegetation contributes in a great percentage to rainfall -even more than oceans and seas- is the local source of the current drought crisis. The precise area of forest lost from Kenya over recent decades is partially known. It is estimated that the country currently has under two per cent of the original forest cover left. Clearing forests to establish industrial tree plantations using mainly exotic species, conversion of forests into agricultural land, logging, forest excisions with the intent of converting the area to other land uses like settlement or private agriculture are some of the underlying causes of deforestation in Kenya.

On the other hand, global climate change is also almost certainly at the heart of the current drought. It has long been predicted that climate change will result in more extreme weather events like droughts, floods and hurricanes. Within that context, extreme droughts such as this one should not come as a surprise.

2) Enclosure on commons - a modern day example.

The Niger Delta lies in the south of the country and consists of nine states and nearly 70,000 square kilometers of land and waterways. This area accounts for over 90 per cent of Nigeria's known gas and oil reserves, which in turn accounted for nearly 80 per cent of total government revenues. As Nigeria's economic powerhouse, the Delta is important to the country's economic standing, as well as to the politicians who benefit from the incoming revenue.

Mismanagement of oil revenues since independence, corruption, the failure to redistribute oil wealth, the utter lack of development in the Delta, and environmental damage arising from oil related exploration related activities have hardened the resolve of those living in the region to agitate for change, and increased popular support for those groups fighting for a better deal. Militancy has grown in the Delta in response to the continued lack of attention to the basic needs of the population:

Social instability, poor local governance, competition for economic resources and environmental degradation has taken a toll . . . . The delta today is a place of frustrated expectation and deep-rooted mistrust . . . [where] [l]ong years of neglect and conflict have fostered a siege mentality (UNDP, 2006, p. 16)[1].

The grievances of those living in the Delta are well founded. The population suffers from environmental contamination resulting from the operations of oil companies ...