２００７年年次報告書への露出
オフィスにSEIの２００７年の年次報告書が届いていた*1。パラパラッとめくってみると。5ページ目に、鮮やかな黄緑色のサンダルをはいた男が写っていた。
ありゃー!
僕のこんな写真が年次報告書につかわてしまっている。
顔の写りは悪くも、サンダルが動かぬ証拠です。
クレジットに乗っているように、昨年１１月に南アフリカで、気候変動が農村部でどのように影響を及ぼしているか、研究に行ったときの写真です。村の人たちとワークショップを開いて、通訳を通して話が弾みました。
その調査にジャーナリストが一人同行したので、研究調査は、南アフリカの新聞に「Pretoria News」に乗りました。
アーカイブがこのサイトに残っていました。
The climate's changing in the rural areas
http://www.journalism.co.za/wits-journalism/the-climates-changing-in-the-rural-areas.html
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Dr Gina Ziervogel, with the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and the University of Cape Town's Climate Systems Analysis Group, and SEI colleague Dr Takeshi Takama have been gathering stories from the community to understand how these multiple stresses feed into one another, undermining the health and prosperity of this marginal village.The idea, Ziervogel says, is to understand how water and health stresses might be impacted by changing climatic trends.
If the temperature increases, it will have water supply implications. A hotter world, where conditions are drier, will put more pressure on existing water supplies.
Although rainfall may increase here during summertime, it may not result in the even distribution of more rain. Increasing temperatures will amplify natural rainfall trends, meaning summer storms may bring larger inundations of rain, falling over shorter periods of time. This might limit how much water percolates down through the soils to the bedrock, recharging the groundwater which feeds the wells or is pumped up to the dam. Traffic has worn away much ground cover, exposing the orange earth to the scouring hand of wind and rain.
Heavy storms will only scrub away more exposed soil.
Now the double-edged sword: mining. The rocks here are rich in heavy metals, fuelling a mining boom.
The community is close to a main road, allowing some villagers to slip into the mainstream economy of mining and its associated industries - domestic work, catering, construction and accommodation.
Mining means jobs and income, but it also means extracting vast quantities of water. More mines are expected to sink their claims into the bedrock here. In a water-stressed environment, water managers will have to weigh up the benefits of mining jobs versus the basic demands of the people who most need the jobs provided by the mines.
One November afternoon, while a cohort of SEI researchers picked their way up through Ga-Selala to seek an audience with the sangoma, the elements revealed themselves with all the typical drama of the Bushveld.
A furious wind tore down across the plain, whipping the ground up into a translucent orange cloud that nearly obscured the nearby villages and mountains from view.
Lightning began slicing its way across the sky, moving in closer until javelins of brilliant electricity are hurtled down onto the koppies above Ga-Selala, accompanied by booms of thunderous fanfare.
Then came the rain: huge, loud, drenching, relentless torrents sloshing out of a saturated sky. Thotse - sangoma and matriarch - read this as a sign that the ancestors were happy with the arrival of her guests, but she nevertheless dashed into the downpour to cast a crushed root into the four winds "to prevent the enemy".
The lighting seemed to retreat again, leaving the heavens to disgorge their contents on the ground below, and hammer doggedly on the tin roof above Thotse's lounge. Most of this rain flooded off into the valley and the nearest riverbed. But some of it would surely percolate down into the groundwater, to where the nozzle of the Thotse borehole lies dormant. This water will not be brought to the surface again until Thotse can mediate some kind of settlement between the ancestors and the powerline.
・・・・
内容は、「ジャングルをナタでバッサバッサとヤブをはたいて、道無き道を突き進む冒険活劇」ってのありえないうそです。気候変動だけでなく、炭鉱の影響など、総合的にストレスを考える必要がある事が書いてありました。
暇があったら、きちんと仕事をしているところを読んでください。
