PÁPA-LÉGUAS!

This ICE CARE expedition was for first time, open the 'social-tourists' - for those who want to travel and at the same time provide some support to local communities. The program of social-tourism was created in partnership with PÁPA-LÉGUAS, and should be repeated at least once a year. The needs of the Maasai people to tackle climate change are so many, that we should establish a permanent volunteer program on the field...but...for now... annual visits are the best we can do.

Maasai and their new Asus Eee PC!

Three of the MPC Photographers spent the night with us in our camp and the next morning was another opportunity to explore some more of the possibilities of the new Asus computer.

When the night came...

Richard and some of the MPC Photographers joined us at sundowner, where we drank, sang and danced in the Maasai traditional choreography, jumping and screaming. When the night came, no one wanted to risk an encounter with leopards and lions so we had to stick 15 people in a land rover and drive into the woods....result...a flat tire....

Sundowners....

Sundowners were new to me. Joana had been telling me about this and I was eager to experience it! The concept is to cross the savannah, starting at our camp and up to this huge rock blocks about 2 hours away. From the top the view is breathtaking and the track there is biblical! We walked without any kind of protection, and always accompanied by zebras and antelopes. That night we had had the company of a lion in our camp, so none of us was completely relaxed and prepared for a 2h walk in hunting territory. But everything went very well, thanks to the Maasai who accompanied us, and to the relationship that their people have been establishing with the wildlife for generations.

Maasai tradicional gifts

The Maasai community rewarded our visit with gifts for each of the participants in the debate of ideas between the Ice Care Association and the Maasai PHOTOGRAFERS FOR CONSERVATION NGO. With this gesture, we have formalized a relationship that I believe will continue for many years and could provide the platform for collaboration to help the Maasai people dealing with the problems of global warming, which are increasingly evident.

Our contribution to Maasai Photographers for Conservation

With ASUS’s fantastic support, the ICE CARE Association delivered an Eee PC to the newly created NGOs MPC! Thus, each photographer can download his photos and manage everything with the laptop. ICE CARE’s official sponsor, Meo, also sent USB flash drives, so that each photographer can carry and keep his photos!

Meeting with the Maasai Photograhers

Joana Roque de Pinho (aka NASHIPAI) created an extraordinary social sustainability project, giving cameras to some Maasai and specific training. This way the Maasai people could document the drought and raise political awareness for their problems. They formed the Maasai Photographers for Conservation - NGO that aims to train photographers as a way of tackling the problems of climate change and nature conservation. One of the goals of the expedition was the direct contact with the Maasai people to collect their testimonies about the consequences of climate change and understand how the ICE CARE Association can help lessen this problem or create sustainability projects in that region.

Wild Life!

Gradually, life begins returning to the park. Animals that survived the worst drought in living memory, are now celebrating the coming of rain and life, walking in the vicinity of our camp. The cracked and dusty ground, in shades of red and brown, now gives place to the lush greens.

Animal cemetery...the result from drought!

The drought caused by global warming, was the biggest in living memory, so we have been told by the Maasai people. The consequences on the Amboseli’s park wildlife were also devastating, killing rhinos, zebras, warthogs and gazelles.

… how does it affect Portugal?

We were explaining the receding of the glaciers of Kilimanjaro ... The journalist asked: “and how does it affect Portugal?”. Well, the lack of water coming down the mountain may turn dry the Mara river and erase the big migration of the wild beast … and so much for the tourism … This would be just a minor collateral damage to the portuguese travel agencies. We talked about the Theory of Caos (a butterfly in Japan …): as an integrated system, a problem on one area of the planet can have consequencies on the rest of the world. At this moment, the effects of global warming are permanently visible in high latitudes (near the poles) and altitudes (say, above 2.500 meters). In lower latitudes (closer to the tropics) those effects are seen as casual and violent phenomena, but their frequency and intensity is increasing at a scary rate! I am talking about hurricanes, snow and sand storms, floods, droughts … In the past, China registered winds of 130km/h, once every 5 years. Nowadays, the same windstorms devastate Beijing 2 or 3 times a year. ‘Climate refugies’ is the new expression to designate people deslocated from their usual habitat due to its destruction by ‘natural’ causes. The number will reach 50 million refugies in 2011 (200M in 2080, according to the a Environment Defense Fund). The European Union already estimated the loss of millions of euros (65?) per year, due to direct effects of the global warming. Portugal could be one of the most affected countries (in domains such as water shortage, impact on coast lines, agriculture, forests …), as well as other coastal cities. A hurricane level 4 over New York could represent a 1 billion dolars loss to the city …

Ice Care 2, the start ...

On the 7th Dec. starts the Copenhagen Summit and the Ice Care team will be on its way to the Mount Kilimanjaro. On the 11th Dec. the International Mountain Day will be highlighted (www.fao.org/mnts/intl_mountain_day_en.asp) and, with some luck, precisely on that day we will reach the top of Africa (5.896m) and its glaciers, adding even more symbolism to the second Ice Care expedition.
The departure of the team takes place on the 4th of Dec. We will be 7 members, including the anthropologist Joana RP, who will guide us through the visit to the Maasai people to understand their problems resulting from the climate changes, the HPP Health doctor Cristina Pereira, and 3 participants on our ‘social program’, that will help us to register the receding of the Kili glaciers.
Meanwhile, China was promising to lead the reduction on the greenhouse gases effects through the next decade. India wanted to play game, and the USA could not stay behind …
After the impact of the movie presented by Al Gore, now was the time for the photographer James Balog, whose video (19 min.) is worthwhile to watch. Balog shares new image sequences from the Extreme Ice Survey, a network of time-lapse cameras recording glaciers receding at an alarming rate, some of the most vivid evidence yet of climate change: http://www.ted.com/talks/james_balog_time_lapse_proof_of_extreme_ice_loss.html

human consequences of climate change

At a recent conference, someone asked me about the goals of our work. ‘If we stop our disruptive behavior right now, could we still save the Kilimanjaro glaciers?’
I believe what we’ll do with the Maasai community goes beyond that kind of controversy now…regardless of who’s to blame, there is certainly lots of help we provide to the people suffering the consequences of climate change…
That’s what we aim to do with the Maasai, starting in December the 4th