- Title: Nigerian floating slum braces for more climate fallout
- Date: 28th February 2022
- Summary: MAKOKO, LAGOS, NIGERIA (FEBRUARY 26, 2022) (REUTERS) VARIOUS DRONE SHOTS SHOWING HUTS BUILT ON STILTS IN MAKOKO (MUTE) NIGERIAN FISHERMAN, TANTI LEON, CASTING NET INTO WATER LEON PULLING FISHING NET LEON AND OTHER FISHERMEN SEARCHING THROUGH NET VARIOUS OF LEON TYING NET MAN PADDLING BOAT (SOUNDBITE) (Egun) NIGERIAN FISHERMAN, TANTI LEON, SAYING: “One time during a bad weather, my boat turned upside down and I had to climb on it with my children until people passed and helped us, I was so sad I made up my mind not to fish again, but then this is all I know how to do.’’ HUT WITH PARTLY COLLAPSED STILT WOMAN IN BOAT SELLING FOOD MAN PADDLING BOAT ACROSS LAGOON WITH TWO WOMEN SEATED VARIOUS OF CHILDREN PLAYING ON RAISED PLATFORMS ABOVE WATER GIRL PADDLING BOAT FILLED WITH FIREWOOD WOMAN PADDLING BOAT WITH CHILD SEATED IN HER LAP (SOUNDBITE) (English) MAKOKO RESIDENT, KOJAH ZACHARIAH, SAYING: “When the storm came, it affected the community as a whole. Like this school. When the storm came it damaged things and it destroyed the school, but when the owners shouted for help government and NGOs intervened and built it back for the children to have a better education in the community." VARIOUS OF CARPENTERS MAKING ALTERATIONS AND REPAIRS TO BOATS (SOUNDBITE) (Yoruba) CARPENTER, SEGUN JISORO, SAYING: “Before we used to construct boat without body cover, but when storm comes it breaks it to pieces, so we came up with this new idea, we cover the body of every boat we make now with zinc, coal, tar, aluminium so that when the storm hits it, the boat will not break or spoil.’’ VARIOUS OF LEON DISEMBARKING BOAT, CARRYING FISHING NETS LEON AND CHILDREN WALKING INTO HOME MOSQUITO NET HANGING IN LEON’S HOME BOWL, FISHING NET AND TELEVISION ON SHELF VARIOUS OF LEON AND FAMILY REPAIRING FISHING NET (SOUNDBITE) (Egun) FISHERMAN, TANTI LEON, SAYING: “The plan is to be able to save and buy a speedboat engine, that will give me the confidence to face the storm when it comes as we know it will be often now. It’s very hard when I have to manually paddle a boat in the face of a storm.’’ NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (FEBRUARY 26, 2022) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) DIRECTOR AND PROFESSOR, INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, COMMUNITY AND ENVIRONMENT DEPARTMENT, CLARK UNIVERSITY, PROFESSOR EDWARD CARR, SAYING: “Incremental change is not going to get us to a climate-resilient future anymore. We are talking about transformational changes to how we live in the world, everything from our food to our energy to transportation, but also our politics and our society. The choice is not between transformation or not transforming anymore. It's a choice between transformations we want and choose and transformations that are done to us.†MAKOKO, LAGOS, NIGERIA (FEBRUARY 26, 2022) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF WOMAN SELLING PAP AND BREAD IN BOAT BOY WITH A BOWL OF PAP COMING OUT OF THE BOAT VARIOUS OF BOY EATING PAP
- Embargoed: 14th March 2022 15:28
- Keywords: Climate change Environment Lagos Nigeria boat slum
- Location: MAKOKO, LAGOS, NIGERIA / NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES
- City: MAKOKO, LAGOS, NIGERIA / NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES
- Country: Nigeria
- Topics: Africa,Environment,Editors' Choice
- Reuters ID: LVA001077628022022RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:When his boat capsized during a storm last year, Nigerian fisherman Tanti Leon clung to its upturned hull with his children and wondered if he should give up trying to fish in the waters around Lagos's flood-prone shanty town of Makoko.
The heavy rainfall also caused water levels to surge, destroying Leon's home, which like most buildings in the sprawling slum was built on sticks in the coastal lagoon facing the mansions and office towers of Nigeria's commercial capital.
With no other way of supporting his family, the father-of-six continues to fish and live in Makoko: just the kind of poor, informal settlement on low-lying ground that is particularly vulnerable to climate change-linked sea-level rise and weather extremes, according to the latest report from the United Nations climate science panel.
"I was so sad I made up my mind not to fish again, but then this is all I know how to do," Leon, 42, recalled on Saturday (February 26), sitting in his boat out at sea.
Africa has contributed very little to climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions, but the world's hottest continent hosts some of the people who are most vulnerable to current and future fallout from the planet's further warming, according to the report, released on Monday.
In Lagos, poorly planned construction to accommodate the rapidly expanding population of around 20 million people is also driving up flood exposure, a 2021 study in the journal Environmental Hazards found.
Over 34% of Lagos's territory was vulnerable to flooding in 2019, up from just 1% at the start of this century, it said.
In Makoko, residents try to adapt to extreme weather, nailing metal sheets to the bottoms of the boats they use for fishing and navigating the narrow waterways between the houses, where children splash in the shallows.
"We cover the body of every boat we make now with zinc, coal tar, aluminium so that when the storm hits it, the boat will not break or spoil," carpenter Segun Jisoro said at the boatyard.
Not all such efforts pay off. In 2016, heavy rains destroyed a floating school that was built to adjust to the changing water levels and withstand the storms that lash the city in the rainy season.
On a continent likely to record the world's fastest population growth this century, Lagos is set to become the world's largest city by 2100.
Tanti Leon's fishing net, empty but for bits of debris, provides a bleak illustration for another assessment made by the U.N. - rising sea temperatures could bring fish harvests down just as the population swells.
Under global warming of 1.7 degrees Celsius, leaner fishing could leave 1.2–1.7 million people in Africa vulnerable to iron deficiencies and hundreds of millions lacking vitamins by mid-century, the report said.
Leon is planning how to adapt his life to the inevitable storms to come. "The plan is to be able to save and buy a speedboat engine," he said. "It’s very hard when I have to manually paddle a boat in the face of a storm."
(Production: Seun Sanni, Angela Ukomadu, Nneka Chile, Januta Andrea, Fraser Simpson) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2022. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: None