Adapting to climate change: the Batwa Pygmie indigenous people in Uganda

Building on last week’s post on the impact of climate change on the quality of water, this week’s post is based on a paper, 'Vulnerability of indigenous health to climate change: A case study of Uganda’s Batwa Pygmies' (Berrang-Ford et al. 2012) on the vulnerabilities to climate change of an indigenous group of people in southwest Uganda called the Batwa Pygmies. Due to the low economic status and dislocation of the Batwa from the forests, the Batwa health has declined dramatically. In 2003, child mortality rates in Batwa were close to 40%, more than double the regional and Ugandan averages, with most of the diseases identified being climate-sensitive, such as malaria, malnutrition and stomach disorders. With increasing temperatures and extreme rainfall events for instance, malaria is becoming a leading health concern as the vector mosquitoes thrive in warm temperatures and stagnant pools of water. The insufficiency of available and accessible clean water is also a major contributing factor to general weakness and stomach disorders. Moreover, poor water quality is responsible for the high degree of morbidity caused by stomach disorders and waterborne diseases. Though most households have relatively easy access to water—within 15min walking distance, the water, often referred to as ‘dirty’ and ‘infected’, is often consumed untreated due to the lack of equipment like saucepans for boiling.

However, the authors also saliently pointed out the socio-political determinants of high sensitivity and limited adaptive capacity of the Batwa to climate change, including poverty, and the Batwa’s lack of political representation as they were often looked upon as lazy and backward due to their hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

Batwa People in Uganda
Source: http://www.gorillatracking-uganda.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/BatwapeopleUganda.jpg

My thoughts on the paper:

In a more specific context, this paper echoes the learning points as written in last week’s post. On adapting successfully to climate change, the author writes ‘climate change has little resonance on the ground, where it is over-shadowed by social and economic determinants of health’ (Berrang-Ford 2012: 1075). Given the importance of the role of accessible, clean water in improving the resilience and adaptive capacity of the Batwa to climate change, this is an important consideration to bear in mind. Policy makers ought not to direct measures and strategies at the direct impacts of climate change—higher temperatures and extreme weather events, but seek to understand the contextually-unique reasons why households are unable to access sufficient clean water or even treat unclean water and design their measures and strategies accordingly. Providing households with the means for sustainable livelihoods where basic health needs are met is therefore the best way to cope with climate change.