PORT LOUIS, Mauritius, Jan 29 (IPS) – Ameenah Gurib-Fakim, PhD, Former President of the Republic of MauritiusThe Republic of Mauritius, an island nation, skilled its newest flash floods for the reason that final unhealthy one in 2013. These floods resulted within the lack of lives and hefty payments for automotive insurers with over 3000 automobiles have been broken.
Sadly, we’ll undergo extra climate-related traumas as a result of as an island nation we’re sorely ill-prepared and we appear to be blithely oblivious to local weather challenges particularly when one takes a take a look at our improvement trajectory.
There may be an pressing have to think about resilience of our infrastructure; our adaptation technique, the usage of acceptable expertise to tell and educate our individuals for higher consciousness and preparedness. After we take a look at latest tragedies, we can’t and should not put every thing on the again of a altering local weather, though I’m positive the temptation is nice as a way to absolve considered one of his/her tasks. Pressing measures must be put in place to counteract this new actuality and likewise handle our vulnerabilities.
There is no such thing as a doubt that we are going to expertise extra devastating cyclones and they’re going to take our economies again a number of many years.
It’s the turning into more and more clear that the way in which we urbanise, the resilience of our infrastructures, how ‘inexperienced’ we hold our buildings and panorama will all underscore how effectively we adapt to a altering local weather.
Regionally and in lots of elements of the world, there’s a excessive proclivity to chop down massive swath of forests, drain the ‘Ramsar-protected’ swamps that are the lungs the world; construct bungalows on sea fronts; sacrifice century-old bushes within the identify of ‘improvement’; century-old drains which have survived the check of time, at the moment are more and more seeped in cement!
In lots of surrounding islands together with Mauritius, buildings are seen popping up on the slopes of mountains. There’s additionally huge funding in infrastructure initiatives with no visibility on the ‘Surroundings Affect Assessments – EIA’ (absence of Freedom of Data Act in Mauritius prevents the general public from accessing to those crucial paperwork).
There’s additionally domestically, no visibility on the Flood-prone zones which suggest that individuals will hold constructing in these areas with the surreal penalties we have now seen final week in Port Louis – automobiles piling up, flooded cemeteries reaching individuals’s properties, individuals being carried away by the sheer drive of the water.
It’s turning into abundantly clear that climate-related occasions will recur and we, because the human race, we have now no selection however to adapt to our new realities. Time and time once more, the rhetoric of ‘saving the planet’ is talked about. It must be introduced house to all of us that Nature has existed earlier than our look 200.000 years in the past and can do effectively after we have now gone. So allow us to not be presumptuous to even suppose that we are able to ‘tame’ or ‘save the planet’.. Our rhetoric should be couched in a the next language ‘how we save ourselves within the mild of the disaster we have now unleashed’!.. That will be extra acceptable and far more in line of this truism which is going through us.
A part of our adaptation realities demand a tradition of transparency, participatory-leadership, promote better consciousness among the many common public on what’s at stake and extra importantly, there must be accountability from those that we vote to resolve on our behalf. They can’t instantly go mum when they’re questioned or cross the buck to technical workers whose roles are, typically purely advisory, when issues begin going south. The non-public and materials loss for most people are just too painful to see when total lifetime efforts and financial savings are washed away by the gushing waters.
I’m a resident of city known as Quatre Bornes and which obtained badly affected by the latest floods. I’m tempted to ask for this ‘confidential’ EIA report for the Quatre Bornes tram challenge in order that we will be enlightened on the remedial actions going ahead?
Could also be those that have been on the helm in 2016 when the choice was taken to begin this mega challenge can enlighten us ? No?
However that is the place “Actual politik” kicks in..
Those that have been vociferously in opposition to this challenge in the course of the electoral marketing campaign, after they have been within the Opposition (that was earlier than they switched aspect and joined the successful occasion) at the moment are its biggest defenders.
A few of those that actioned the choices when in authorities at the moment are within the Opposition and are expressing outsized aspirations for increased posts ..hmm.. on the subsequent common elections??.
Actually?
Transparency, Justice and Accountability are the virtues that the general public calls for what we actually DONOT want are empty rhetoric and guarantees … The survival of our youngsters and grandchildren depends upon it and we have now NO proper to sacrifice their future by way of our inaction.
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© Inter Press Service (2024) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service
