By Ignatius Banda
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, May 17 2024 – Rising temperatures are being blamed for an increase in human-wildlife conflicts in Zimbabwe as animals such as snakes leave their natural habitat earlier than usual.

High temperatures have also given rise to early fire seasons, driving wild animals into human-populated areas, authorities say, placing the lives of many in danger in a country with already compromised health services.

This is also happening at a time when agencies such as the World Health Organization are highlighting the link between climate change and health and calling for increased research.

Globally, unprecedented high temperatures are being blamed for devastating wildfires, and low income African countries such as Zimbabwe that are bearing the brunt of climate change have not been spared.

At the beginning of the year, Zimbabwe’s health ministry reported a spike in the number of snake bites as snakes moved into areas inhabited by humans.

Residents witnessing the upsurge of snakes within residential areas say this has coincided with extreme heat being experienced across the country, while snake catchers in the country’s cities are also recording booming business.

Wildlife authorities say disappearing natural habitat for wildlife has led to increasing endangerment for humans, while climate researchers have noted a link between rising temperatures and snake attacks.

The Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Authority (Zimparks) says brumation, the period snakes spend in hibernation, has been shortened by extended, unusually high temperatures as snakes move from their hiding places earlier than during normal seasonal temperatures.

Shorter winters and longer days have also become normal in a rapidly changing global climate, researchers note, forcing wildlife to adapt and, in some circumstances, move to human-populated areas.

This has led to a record number of snake bites, says Tinashe Farawo, the parks and wildlife spokesperson.

High temperatures in Zimbabwe are also being blamed for extended fire seasons as dry conditions provide ideal conditions for the spread of veld fires.

And as the veld fires spread, dangerous wildlife such as snakes seek safety elsewhere, further endangering the lives of humans, Zimparks officials say.

Affected communities, however, find themselves in a fix regarding how to deal with this climate driven phenomenon.

It is a punishable offence in Zimbabwe to kill wildlife and protected snake species even when humans feel their lives are threatened, highlighting the impact and complexity of climate change on biodiversity and ecological balance.

“As ecosystems change, people and wildlife roam farther in search of food, water and resources. The issue of human-wildlife conflict in Zimbabwe is increasingly gaining traction,” said Washington Zhakata, climate change management director in the environment ministry.

“Rising temperatures are affecting vegetation, food sources, access to water and much more. Ecosystems are gradually becoming uninhabitable for certain animals, forcing wildlife to migrate outside of their usual patterns in search of food and liveable conditions,” Zhakata told IPS.

Zimbabwe has in recent months registered record high temperatures that have affected everything from crops to people’s health, at a time when global temperatures have also soared, triggering a raft of environmental, social, economic, and health challenges.

Researchers have noted that global warming has over the years disrupted biodiversity, forcing wildlife to move to more habitable regions, and, in the process, upsetting natural ecosystems.

“In many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, during periods of drought, people and their livestock are competing with wildlife for diminishing resources,” said Nikhil Advani, senior director of wildlife and climate resilience at the World Wildlife Fund.

Amid the challenges brought by climatic shifts, experts say improved interventions are needed to navigate increasing human-wildlife conflict.

Despite all evidence, least-developed countries such as Zimbabwe have struggled to mobilize and channel resources towards climate management programmes, exposing both humans and wildlife to open conflict.

“There are a number of interventions that can help mitigate human-wildlife conflict, for example, predator-proof bomas (safe areas) and early warning systems for wild animals in the area. One key thing is that communities need to see the benefits of living with wildlife,” Advani said.

While Zimbabwe has the Communal Areas Management for Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE) aimed at helping address issues such as human-wildlife conflict, broader issues that include the impact of climate change on ecology remain unaddressed, affected communities say.

“Initiatives like eco-tourism are an excellent way for communities to see the benefits of living with wildlife, as long as the tourism ventures have strong inclusion of local communities throughout the value chain,” Advani added.

With climate researchers warning that the globe will continue warming, concerns linger about the long-term impact of climate change on human-wildlife conflict as communities struggle to normalize cohabiting with dangerous animals.

“Already today we face an exponential increase, compared to 30 years ago, in climate and weather-related natural disasters. These disasters are causing catastrophic loss of life and habitat for people, pets, and wildlife,” Zhakata said.

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By Mario Osava
ATAFONA, Brazil , May 17 2024 – Coastal erosion has been aggravated by climate change and has already destroyed more than 500 houses in the town of Atafona in southeastern Brazil. Movements led largely by women are working to combat the advance of the sea and generate economic alternatives.

Atafona, one of the six districts of São João da Barra, a municipality of 37,000 inhabitants, is 310 kilometers by road northeast of Rio de Janeiro. It is a town with its own identity. Fishermen, who were joined by middle-class families from nearby large cities, built their vacation homes there.

Sonia Ferreira did so in 1980, when she lived in Rio de Janeiro. She moved permanently to Atafona in 1997, when she witnessed the disappearance of the three blocks that separated her house from the beach. In 2008, she saw the town’s tallest building—four stories—collapse across the street from her house.

She has photos recording the downfall of the building that housed a supermarket and a bakery on the first floor and a hotel upstairs. Her house would have been the next victim, but the sea granted her an 11-year grace period. “I will only leave when the wall around the house falls,” she would tell her family when they pressured her to move to a safer place.

Sonia Ferreira, 79, the president of SOS Atafona, stands next to the remains of a four-story building that the sea toppled in 2008. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

But from 2019 to 2022, the sea level started to rise again. “In 2019, the first piece of the wall fell. I fixed up the little house at the back of the lot and moved in, but I kept the big house with the furniture until 2022, when the water reached the house and the floor gave way,” she told IPS at her current home, near her daughter’s house.

“The sea does not hit in overpowering waves, but erodes the sandy soil, infiltrates underneath the buildings, undermines their structures, and the house is basically left hanging in the air,” she described.

In late 2022, she decided to demolish the “big house” in a painful process after sadly seeing the wall fall down in pieces. But then she could not live in the small house in the backyard, which was invaded by a large amount of sand, so she was taken in by her daughter. Widowed, she has two other children who live abroad.

At the age of 79, Sonia Ferreira channels her love for the area as president of SOS Atafona, an association with about 200 active residents, mostly women, who debate and lobby the public authorities for solutions to stop the advance of the sea and other problems in the neighborhood.

Sonia Ferreira stands in front of what was left of her home, which she decided to demolish in 2022 after coastal erosion knocked down its outer walls and washed out the sandy base, leaving just columns. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

Fishermen Suffer Climate Injustice

“Fishermen have been hit the hardest,” she said, as vacationers have resources such as other homes.

The original settlers are the main victims of climate injustice in Atafona. The rising sea level and the intensification of the northeast wind not only destroyed their houses but also exacerbated the siltation at the mouth of the Paraíba do Sul River, limiting the access of boats to the fishing port on the river through a narrow channel.

Faced with the difficulties, the larger vessels prefer to deliver their fish to distant ports, some 100 kilometers to the north or south, at the expense of the local economy, lamented Elialdo Mirelles, president of the São João da Barra Fishermen’s Colony.

The president of the São João da Barra Fishing Colony, Elialdo Meirelles, is photographed at the repair port for fishing boats on the Paraiba do Sul River, near its mouth. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

Meirelles estimates that about 400 fishing families lost their homes on Convivência Island, which was in the Paraíba do Sul River delta, where the problems began.

Only 200 families were given new houses by the government, while the rest were dispersed or have been living for years with the benefit of “social rent,” a small sum from the municipality to help pay for rental housing.

That is why he believes that the houses engulfed by the sea in the entire area numbered much more than the 500 or so estimated by the city government and that the erosion actually began before the 1960s, which is the time frame indicated by researchers.

Dunes are growing and threatening the streets and coastal housing in a part of Atafona Beach after the sea and sand destroyed more than 500 houses on the beach closest to the mouth of the Paraiba do Sul river. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

“I was born on Convivencia Island in 1960, where my grandfather and father lived. My father lost two houses there, I lost two, and two of my brothers lost one each. The northeast wind was the cause,” he said. In 1976, the government began to remove settlers from the island, and the last ones left in the 1990s.

Then many families living in Pontal, the end point of the river’s right bank, also lost their homes. “Five streets were submerged,” he noted. As the island disappeared, that mainland area lost a barrier against the wind, he said.”The sea does not hit in overpowering waves, but erodes the sandy soil, infiltrates underneath the buildings, undermines their structures, and the house is basically left hanging in the air.” —Sonia Ferreira

Meirelles, who sought a new home away from the shoreline on his own, represents 680 registered fishermen in his entire municipality of São João da Barra, 56 percent of whom are from Atafona.

Causes of coastal erosion

“Climate change definitely aggravated the problem unleashed by several factors, especially human action that reduced the river’s flow,” said Eduardo Bulhões, marine geographer and professor at the Fluminense Federal University.

The main factor was the transfer of water from the Paraiba do Sul river to the Guandu river system, which supplies nine million inhabitants of outlying areas of Rio de Janeiro and was inaugurated in 1954. Since then, there have been expansions that have drastically reduced the flow of water in the river that runs into Atafona.

The river rises near São Paulo and crosses almost the entire state of Rio de Janeiro—in other words, a densely populated area of 1,137 km. Its waters, destined for other cities, industries, and hydroelectric generation, lost the volume and strength to carry sediment to the delta at the mouth as a barrier against the sea.

In addition to engulfing Convivencia Island and many blocks of Atafona, the sea advanced upstream, salinizing many kilometers of water table and affecting the municipality’s water supply.

The collapse of houses due to erosion is also caused by their irregular construction on dunes that have always existed in the town and are growing on part of the beach, said Bulhões.

The northeast wind, which is intensified by climate change and pushes the waters that erode the constructions and the sands that threaten to clog the coastal road and nearby houses, contributes to this, he said.

A solution to coastal erosion depends on studies to identify long-term feasibility and effectiveness, and the city government is preparing terms of reference to contract the studies, reported Marcela Toledo, São João da Barra’s secretary of environment and public services.

Women-led projects

This municipality is also located in an area impacted by oil exploration in the Campos basin, offshore Rio de Janeiro state. Due to environmental requirements, the state-owned oil company Petrobras, the main explorer, is financing the Pescarte Environmental Education Project to mitigate and compensate for these impacts, carried out by the North Fluminense State University (UENF).

In the project, which is focused on fishing as the most affected activity, women constitute the vast majority. The main proposals approved were refrigeration plants, industrial kitchens, fishmeal factories and processing plants, said Geraldo Timoteo, a professor at the UENF and the head of Pescarte.

In the Pescarte team, initially looking at environmental education and now at production, 48 out of a total of 59 employees are women. Of the 14 supervisors, 11 are women.

Fernanda Pires, an activist seeking solutions that add value to fish, runs the Arte Peixe cooperative, which produces eight types of fish and shrimp snacks in Atafona, Brazil. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS.

The organization of artisanal fishermen and their families is the central objective of the long-term (2014–2035) project. It also seeks to increase income through expanding the use of fish and providing better access to markets and cooperatives.

Now the idea is to promote aquaculture based on experiments conducted at the UENF.

Pescarte has also accumulated knowledge about the world of fishermen. It conducted two censuses in the 10 participating municipalities in 2016 and 2023, Timoteo told IPS.

In the second one, 46 percent of the people interviewed were women and 21 percent of them were responsible for 100 percent of the family income. In 37.9 percent of the cases, they shared this responsibility with their husbands.

Fernanda Pires is one of the participants of Pescarte in Atafona. Her activism for fish processing as a way of adding value is reflected in her practice as leader of the Arte Peixe cooperative, which produces eight types of fish and shrimp snacks.

Founded in 2006 by her mother, Arte Peixe has 20 female members, seven of whom work directly in production. The profits are limited, serving as a supplement to the main income obtained from other work or employment. Pires is a municipal employee, but new markets open up prospects for better profits in the future.

The leading role played by women in overcoming the problems in Atafona, threatened by coastal erosion and the decline in fishing, is perhaps due to the fact that “they study more, and have greater concern for the future, and a stronger sense of community,” said Bulhões.

In Pescarte, its directors observe that while men prioritize fishing in itself, upgrading their boats and equipment, and are absent from the city, spending more and more time at sea every day, women take care of processing the fish, sales and adding value; that is, they focus more on the future of the activity and of their lives.

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By Jihad Azour
WASHINGTON DC, May 17 2024 – Dislocations from the pandemic, geoeconomic fragmentation, and Russia’s war in Ukraine have shifted world trade dynamics. While this has created challenges, the redirection of trade has also generated new opportunities, particularly for the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Since the war began, the region’s economies have shown continued resilience and trade activity in many countries has surged, fueled in part by alternative trade routes. In 2022, Armenia, Georgia, and the Kyrgyz Republic saw their share of trade excluding oil and gas with major partners such as China, the European Union, Russia, and the United States rise as much as 60 percent.

Hence, despite some moderation, gross domestic product growth in the Caucasus and Central Asia is projected to remain robust at 3.9 percent in 2024 before picking up to 4.8 percent in 2025.

Trade volumes between China and Europe via Central Asia have more than quadrupled. Though this route, known as the Middle Corridor, represents a small fraction of overall trade between China and Europe, it holds significant promise for economic development in the Caucasus and Central Asia and its integration into global supply chains.

Shifting trade patterns have also opened opportunities elsewhere. For example, countries in the Middle East and North Africa, such as Algeria, Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar, roughly doubled their energy exports to the European Union in 2022–23 to meet surging demand for non-Russian oil and gas.

More recently, Red Sea shipping attacks stemming from the conflict in Gaza and Israel have not only disrupted maritime trade and impacted neighboring economies but also increased the level of uncertainty.

Suez Canal transits are down more than 60 percent since the conflict in Gaza and Israel began as ships are rerouted around the Cape of Good Hope. Cargo volumes also have contracted sharply in Red Sea ports such as Jordan’s Al Aqaba and Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah. However, some trade has been redirected within the region, including to Dammam, Saudi Arabia, on the Persian Gulf.

Persistent Red Sea disruptions could have sizable economic consequences for the most exposed economies. An illustrative scenario in our most recent Regional Economic Outlook shows that countries on the Red Sea (Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen) could lose about 10 percent of their exports and close to 1 percent of GDP on average if disruptions continue through the end of this year.

In the current uncertain landscape of international trade, strategic foresight and proactive policy reforms will be the key factors enabling countries to achieve trade and income gains. Addressing the challenges posed by these shocks and seizing the opportunities ahead will require that countries tackle longstanding trade barriers arising from elevated nontariff restrictions, infrastructure inadequacies, and regulatory inefficiencies.

Targeted policy reforms can help do this, though preparation is crucial. Reducing nontariff trade barriers, boosting infrastructure investment, and enhancing regulatory quality could help increase trade by up to 17 percent on average over the medium term, our research shows, while economic output could be 3 percent higher. This would also enhance resilience against future trade shocks.

Past reforms show effective action is possible. Uzbekistan has enhanced its attractiveness to foreign investors and deepened its integration into the global economy eliminating currency controls and improving the business environment. Saudi Arabia grew its non-oil economy and attracted international businesses through its Vision 2030 reform plan, which included easing regulatory constraints on trade and investment.

Azerbaijan’s investment in the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway, a key segment of the Middle Corridor, highlights the potential of infrastructure investment, increasing cargo capacity between Asia and Europe. These initiatives underscore the transformative power of targeted policy reforms in adapting to and thriving within the global trade landscape.

Countries in the Middle East and North Africa can mitigate ongoing shipping disruptions by improving their supply chain management, securing new suppliers in the most affected sectors, seeking alternate shipping routes, and assessing air freight capacity needs.

In the medium term, countries can increase their resilience to trade disruptions by strengthening and expanding regional linkages and connectivity. In turn, investing in transportation infrastruc¬ture, including by developing innovative sea–land routes, would be important.

Building a more diversified trade profile—spanning partners, products, and routes—would significantly bolster the region’s ability to withstand disruptions. Shifting trade patterns present a unique opportunity for countries to redefine their place in the global economic framework.

This IMF blog reflects contributions by Bronwen Brown and other staff across the Middle East and Central Asia Department. It is based on Chapter 3 of the April 2024 Regional Economic Outlook for the Middle East and Central Asia, “Trade Patterns amid Shocks and a Changing Geoeconomic Landscape.” The authors of the chapter are Apostolos Apostolou, Hasan Dudu, Filippo Gori, Alejandro Hajdenberg, Thomas Kroen, Fei Lui, and Salem Mohamed Nechi.

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