Hello everybody and welcome to the latest edition of eco africa. The show dates god in Lagos Nigeria its nice to have you with us we have a lot of new reports from europe and africa on brings people are doing to tackle the Environmental Issues facing the m word for me of course is michael present from uganda i will sandra. Hello n. C. Good to see you once again my name is sandra to know youre coming to from kampala here in uganda many thanks to you all for tuning in todays program will take us all around a beautiful continent as we should some light on the environmental threats we face here in ivory coast we will hear about it not look its arguable nonfuel communities on take the pressure of forests we will take a look at what the tom get a wardrobe means here in uganda and find out how he says your boy lives are helping to rehabilitate land in south africa. Alfonse report comes from the ivory coast like many places in africa the country is losing more and more trees to illegal logging and slash and by on long periods in an effort to reduce only bust the trend an Initiative Process on to to get a technology to help look at new fund money for the villages how does it work out equal reporter went to find out. If. This pod guarantees this Farmers Economic survival and its organic. And monday the move yo grows cocoa on a small plantation the size of around 2 soccer fields its located in the lemay region in the south east of ivory coast the Worlds Largest cocoa producer. Nowadays his farm is legal but for many years he had an illegal plantation in the middle of the mob be classified forest. Fire. We wanted to make money because the production. Was 2 or 3 times higher than here so we really wanted to stay there. In the 1st decade of this century ivory coast went through a political and military crisis the budget for the protection of classified forests and National Parks was reduced the consequence many Cocoa Farmers started illegal plantations there are hundreds of hectares of trees are still illegally chopped down to make room for cocoa farming. In january 2900 the government adopted a new law to boost. Patrolled by trained rangers. Forest is disappearing culture especially the cocoa industry. The forest has a lot of advantages for farmers its the best place with. Conflict. And monday cultivated cocoa on an illegal plantation for 4 years but then he decided to move his plantation to another location. He participates in a project called red plus which has the goal to protect forests and is run by the. Dennis mia is in charge of the Mapping Mission of project red plus he uses geo poppy a free source mapping app. Assesses the Agricultural Land around the classified forest and finds abandoned fields like one belonging to mobilise relatives. Allows us to establish the boundaries of plots of land for example mobilise plot is right next to the classified forest now he knows the boundaries of a plot that is not going to go beyond his limits and wont cross into the classified forest. Geo poppy software also maps all Important Trees on the plots in the sixtys and seventys farmers cut down all the trees on their plantations to get maximum sun exposure because they believe that cocoa needed a lot of sun. In fact the plant needs more shave agro biologist. Explains the impact of each tree on the cocoa plants to the farmers. Lawn like we added they ought to be tree is important due to its environmental benefit that it stores the carbon so it plays a role in climate regulation in addition it plays an ecological role as its a cocoa friendly tree which protects and get shade to the plant that helps keep the soil moist and more fair trial which in turn increases cocoa production. The n. G. O. s meaty day helps farmers like to convert their plantations in order to get an e. U. Organic label for their cocoa production. One requirement is for example to use empty pods as fertilizers. And to dry the be as on traditional bamboo mats. Mo bureau has benefited from this project. Its made a big difference to my life. Before it was very difficult to make a living. But with organic cocoa prices are even better than with conventional cocoa. As a result a man davy mobutus family is much better off and the forest is to. Hear him come pull out there is what thinking person reposition technically a local resident becomes local son about all the rubbish lying all around in the neighborhood she organized cleanup day. Sandra helped plan was to incorporate the waste art on the idea small circle that. I cant see in and stylish. Kenya manufactured her boots from hughes drive. The former students uses Recycled Materials such as rubber. And all the plastics she sells her creations in her shop in kampala. Word of her label get a wardrobe spread fast and its selling well. I decided to simplify my god into small things better use than i did today life and im using right now im using question as i will communication plan to question is my voice because people in the flow i never want in uganda and outside uganda allows fashion organizes regular cleanup days with her friends the 26 year old lives in a slum in kampala although there has been an official ban on pulley thing back for 3 years in uganda it still hasnt properly taken in fact. Alice and her friends always find a lot of bags during the cleanup which is then recycles in her artwork right from. When i just used to you know she was sick they used to do this. And they put. But as an artist i dont support that because it causes pollution once again they managed to collect a lot of plastic according to the Kampala City Council around 50 percent of Plastic Waste is collected every year for reuse the other how fish just dumped in public spaces damage and water and soil fertility once in a while the young artist visits her Old University alice developed the idea of tackling plastic pollution while studying in dust shows design so in this context were looking at equipping them with skills designs creativity skills where the hans competence in appreciating the environment designing products but the products also be used in the community and they are possibly recyclable last year alice began teaching young people in the slums where plastic pollution is a serious concern catherine and go be one of the over 200 people who have been trained here at alices center. When i looked at an educated woman like collecting plastic and using it for something useful i wondered why so one who has never gone to school like shouldnt also be working we used plastics and. Initiatives like alices may take a long time to change plastic pollution but with her fashion label gets a wardrobe she has found a clever way of raising environmental awareness in kampala no. This is. Making good use of weight is partly the motivation behind another project this time in kenya since a ban on charcoal production was introduced to combat deforestation many producers are turned their attention to market in uganda and rwanda but others like sites where im making charcoal briquettes from other materials instead heres this weeks doing your bit from mombasa. Charcoal briquettes from coconut waste. The huge need for wood fuel for cooking purposes has contributed to deforestation in kenya. Now the government has banned the unlicensed production of charcoal. This is left to millions of people without a reliable source of energy for cooking. The Award Winning start up can cocoa in mombasa came up with an alternative coconut shells and husks are the basis for their charcoal briquettes. First corn starch and water are added. To burn shells and husks or ground. This mixture is then pressed into briquettes the briquettes burnt harder and longer than charcoal made from wood saving households a lot of money. To start up produces 2 tons of coconut charcoal a day. In the future the teen wants to work with other war again equates to such as sugar cane. And how about you. If you are also doing your bit tell us about it visit our website or send us a tweet hash tag doing your bit. We share your story. Here in africa the effects of the Climate Crisis have never been more pods and the farming sector is inevitably hardest hit anything opiate for instance the farmers on what is supposed to be a high yield crop every year about the land is so parched barely anything obvious so additional indigenous seeds are too expensive or hard to come by for small scale farmers of the live mates in. European Research Learning how to. Revive and. Drought. Biologist. Is showing 3 visitors around the fields of the likeness instituto plant genetics on cropland research in central germany. 3 i work at the seed bank of the Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute in. The largest of its kind in africa they want to find out what their colleagues in germany are doing to improve the quality of crop seeds. Its one thing to preserve samples from old varieties quite another to grow new plants from the. Samples have to be dried and prepared in such a way that theyll keep for a long period of time. And tests have to be conducted to see if theyre able to germinate project root if. The market likes the hands on part of the process here she is learning things she hopes to implement back home shes manager of the seed bank and i decide. We dont know what moral can bring so we always want to see if our worst. Where life even though we support a life of food shelter maids its all or what a base for our living. Its a question of living. So housing in conserving supporting life will take a lot of us a shows her guests the treasure trove at the heart of the institute the seed bank with over 150000 samples from crop plants from around the world gathered over a period of several decades. On you know. A lot of us so has been collaborating with her colleagues in addis ababa for 9 years now. But diversity of species is astounding for example data more than 9000. 00 varieties of being in the collection alone size half of the seed bank here in gutters leaving is one of the largest in the world or so leg the mission from south many specimens come from older strains that are no longer cultivated on working farms but that could nonetheless prove very useful. The items in all the righties have lower yields but they can cope better with changing climatic conditions theyre more robust in times of drought lack of water often turn soil acidic or leads to a build up of minerals and heavy metals these varieties can withstand all of that better than more fragile modern seeds more than a. Lot of us are has got to know the problems farmers face in ethiopia firsthand for sure using traditional methods to farm their small fields most can barely feed their families let alone create a surplus for sale they tend to plant the same crops year in year out which leads to soil degradation and ever lower yields new varieties are needed. The institute in add is also has fields where new strains are tested strains developed that with the help of a german seed company. That more back at the likeness institute in germany this week was grown from seeds collected in the 1950 s. The variety actually originated in ethiopia but has died out there this is a 6 robo examples have since been sent back to the seed bank and is along with seeds of other crops once endemic to ethiopia really certain strains of wheat and mustard more than 7000 in all now theyre back home and available for research and possibly cultivation we want to apply or to use all of my heroes. For development so most of our seed. Researchers from Different Research in the country and students who are studying for. The visitors from ethiopia want to expand the testing of old a variety is at their own institute to establish which ones could withstand stress factors such as dryness or acidic soil an important step to boost Sustainable Farming in ethiopia or. Good point. Good luck back to africa from seeds for the soil to the sun in the sky really my new suit a self described Energy Entrepreneur here in the Nations Capital is developing what he calls off the grid homes and he shows us yet again that Renewable Energy makes business sense right and say he will guys name one user was involved in one of nigerias most impressive green housing projects these innovative friendly. If attracting a growing following among the media there. This is a greenhouse an apartment complex in the heart of. Everything here operates on Renewable Energy. And his family have lived here for 3 years now. The architect cares about the environment and says the green apartment has even made his life more comfortable and he never had any back up to. Have my 2 kids theyve never experienced. So its a good movie studio. According to the world bank as many as half of all nigerians live without access to electricity the demand for days estimated to be 41000. 00 megawatts which is about 8 times more than whats currently available one solution is through the best of breed systems like the green house its 10 apartments 40 rooms and all the energy is provided by a combined system its mainly based on solar power night energy can be created through when paul. Descent of man center which has been running totally underground for the past for a centimeter foster scanning answer to what i did on the study Hard Technology works and how you can apply to finance our character came to so so many really sits across the country that i. Saw a fossil just like this. The company went into business 10 years ago it provides various Renewable Energy solutions and is now worth 3000000. 00. A team is driving to. This area has never been connected to the National Grid we have millions of ledger and have any hope of seeing elections having led to torso london recession that in the long run on a very short run rather than every house. And have access to electricity. In the village of. Which are neither healthy no good for the environment now theyre getting. Old all for free. Energy provides the service as a way of giving vox. Is delighted with. He says it will help his children study in the evenings. And the best bit its easily rechargeable. How many. Kind of a theme. Is great for children and i. Think you might have and weve never seen anything like this before. Back to the greenhouse. Compared to the average nigerian household the dardanelles werent. The eco friendly. Makes it worth it to them. In south africa intensive lifestyle grazing is degrading the soil in many areas heat waves on drought a compounding the problem leaving many areas vari to stop the long turning into a desert some farmers in the eastern cape are switching from raising goals to growing plants to produce essential oils it offical went out to see how this works. Rosemary that prefers sunny and dry location and its value lies in the plants tips we have precious and syrian oil can lead to a high quality resource for the for smith takes and Pharmaceuticals Industries from a william fund rentable is nervous this is his 1st harvest and the future of the whole valley depends on the scrap. Iron out in the Playing Field border very constant small stock farming and we needed space simply became too much for our land so we need to find other means of income and that is why we look at this kind of thing so we can continue with our left and together with a lot. More students recalls growing fear. Of when the fear can bore some of the. Farmers here keep. More here will is a luxury item in the clothing industry with more and more guards however the local vegetation has been eaten away i think green bushy vegetation once covered this slopes now the barren westland holds no water and no life. Daniel florrie manages the above yes close Development Company together with van rensburg and other families he leads the turn season from exploitative livestock farming to organic essential oil crops the oil extracted in this distillery essential oils you take a lot of plant material and distill it to a very small amount of product that you can easily transport in and out of the cliff and in that way we we need we reduce the amount of material that we take out of the system and all the plant material once it being the still can actually go back into the fields go back into the system we can use that to make up for it its a higher value prop if you need less lend to you to work with. Then more efficient land use is making a difference whereas goats need extended grazing areas the essential oil crops exclusively cultivated on the fight in floor of the valley thats where the slopes have time to recover farmer peter kruger once used his entire 6000 hectares for grazing today cultivates a mere 20 hectors of rosemary for the same retirement he sold his godson most of his farm has been declared a nature reserve for he hopes other farmers will follow kruegers example. The biggest part of it is actually to change the mindset of the farmers to change the. To change the way that theyve been doing something we were always 40 years we bring courage to the farmers to make that shift from a extractive to regenerative farming practices. The godfrey slopes are slowly recovering the living lands Organization Helps the farmers rejuvenates their land here on the completely degraded slope that was once grist their automobiles and his team what hard to protect every single tree fern bush is keep the goats away white canvas walls collect rainwater and hold the precious soil beneath the phones new hope is proud. You know we are starting to see changes even at a small scale weve just gone through one of the worst droughts and over 100 years. And despite that we are seeing positive changes in the ecosystem it was a leap of faith for all involved. Had to buy a new system for over 65000. 00 euros but the 1st bunch of rosemary looks promising and hes sure his investment will soon pay out. Its good to be reminded that protecting the environment always brings of im afraid were now coming to the end of this weeks episode of africa but well be looking forward to seeing you once again next week i am sound of coming to you from kampala here in uganda. By phone now sand