ACTIONS TO FIGHTS AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE IN LUBERO TERRITORY/DRC
The NGO ACPDI “Action des Communautés Payssanne pour le Developpement Integré” is a member of the DRCNDF that aims to contribute to the socio-economic promotion of the peasant community. ACPDI campaigns for the well-being of peasants through Food Security and Nutritional Promotion, Rehabilitation of Road Infrastructure, Social Protection and Promotion of Peace, Health, Water, Hygiene and sanitation; Environmental protection and humanitarian assistance.
The effects of climate change are visible in the Nile Basin region following the countless natural disasters that have occurred in the past months. Floods, landslides, erosions and disruptions of the seasons are among the many signs clearly showing that climate change is having harmful effects and there is an urgency to take concrete action to limit the damage in one way or another.
The heavy rain that fell the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, May 10, 2023 caused several human and material damage in Mbene / Bulambo in the Graben towards Vuholu and Miringathi, in Lubero territory (North Kivu). At least 7 people have already been found by investigators until the evening of this Wednesday.”They were surprised in their homes by a landslide that swept away several houses”, report the sources of RADIOMOTO.NET. They were found during excavations. The delegated state official in Mubana adds that 40 houses and livestock were also washed away by the streaming waters.
The situation presented above is the one that particularly affected the Congolese Nile basin. Many other disasters have been observed in April and May 2023 in the province of South Kivu in the territory of Kalehe in the DRC .
As part of the implementation of the project to support the socio-economic reintegration of marginalized and unemployed young people as a measure to promote peace, ACPDI brought together 497 young people in 14 peace clubs across the 14 target villages of the project in the area of Ngeleza’s health. They are named peace club because they participate in the promotion of peace through awareness raising on related themes such as human rights and fundamental freedoms, the fight against sexual violence, the peaceful management of conflicts, the agribusiness, rural entrepreneurship, peace education, the fight against alcoholism and drug addiction and the fight against climate changeHowever, the organization of sessions on climate change and the planting of fruit trees in the Ngeleza health area through the installation of 14 collective nurseries of fruit trees as planned in the project began with the installation of collective nurseries in fruit trees in 10 villages.
Peace has a serious impact on environmental protection in the sense that in the DRC and more specifically in the Congolese Nile basin, many armed groups live from logging and the charcoal trade. In Virunga National Park, a large charcoal trading cartel set up by rebel groups serves as a means of self-financing and perpetuates their bad actions against security and deforestation which is a threat to the environment.Raising young people’s awareness of the themes of promoting peace and introducing them to entrepreneurship is an ACPDI contribution to the fight against the massive membership of the latter in armed groups that live off the coal trade after an irrational deforestation, poaching and abusive exploitation of other natural resources thus threatening environmental protection.The objective is to cultivate a lasting peace so that armed groups exploiting natural resources abusively lack new adherents because it is the lack of employment that negatively influences young people. In these themes of promoting peace, young people are trained in the fight against sexual violence, the peaceful management of conflicts, rural entrepreneurship and agribussness as well as the fight against global warming through the cultivation of fruit trees.The choice of cultivating fruit trees in the fight against global warming has a double advantage and in the first part these trees contribute to environmental protection, in the second part these fruits contribute to food security and economic self-care of these young people who planted them.
It is for this reason that many hotbeds and nurseries are set up by these young people to begin the process of planting fruit trees to fight against global warming.Reforestation is one of the great solutions in the fight against climate change because forests play a big role in balancing the ecosystem. the cultivation of fruit trees has an advantage not only for food security but also the protection environmental.The Ngeleza health area in which the NGO ACPDI operates has also been facing deforestation for a decade and this has a negative impact on environmental protection in this region, it is for this reason that the young people of this health area are trained and supported to work for reforestation and environmental protection through the planting of fruit trees in their various villages.