(9 Nov 2015) The place where Fatou Faye's kitchen once stood is now outlined with short branches of mangroves - a small and perhaps futile attempt to prevent the sea from destroying the rest of her house.
The rising sea levels pushing into the waters of Senegal's Saloum Delta threaten to carve the rest of her grey cement home from its foundation, leaving her and 30 other relatives homeless on low-lying Diamniadio island.
She cooks peanuts in front of a patchwork aluminium shack separated from the house, gazing at the water's edge where other homes once stood.
She said they all brace themselves for the full moon that pushes the tides even higher.
"When the tide is high, the water goes into the kitchen and then gradually the water enters the rooms," says the 60-year-old.
"The high salinity of the sea water eventually breaks down even the cement."
Faye and thousands of others on these tiny islands and villages in this part of West Africa are living on the frontline of climate change.
Not only are water levels here now higher than they used to be, but droughts and erratic rain falls lead to floods that carve through the white-shell-lined alleyways, and increased salt levels are poisoning fresh waters, land and agriculture.
The loss of mangrove habitat, driven by nature and human action, means coastlines and fish breeding grounds are being erased.
The islanders' way of life is fundamentally changing with the climate, and livelihoods based on fishing and agriculture are disappearing, leaving them with little income and fears of starvation.
"Three or four days after rain, everything goes white - there are piles of salt, Fatou says. "Everything we have sown (crops) dies."
Some are making the perilous journey to Europe in the hope that they can help support their families.
Activists working to save these islands in Senegal hope their plight is front and centre at an upcoming UN climate summit in Paris.
In 1987, strong northwest waves breached the Sangomar sandbar that protected the delta, speeding up the invasion of salt water from the Atlantic Ocean about two decades after a severe drought led to the loss of major mangrove habitats.
A government-funded programme has paid for sea walls in front of several villages, including Rofangue.
A Rofangue community leader said the government consulted the village when it built the wall, but it is not high or long enough, and it's too close to the village.
Many homes still are flooded; water also often collects behind the wall, and residents must empty it back to the sea.
The rising sea has also increased salt levels in nearby fresh water, poisoning the soil and killing crops.
Seynabou Thior remembers the days in the village of Baout, on an island close to the edge of the delta, when people here could harvest their own rice.
That was more than 20 years ago, before the salt contamination. Now these communities have to buy the very products they once cultivated, with little income to do so.
"We lost our rice fields and we stopped cultivating rice. If we could settle this problem, we would resume our business," Seynabou Thior said.
In Baout village, home to nearly 1,100 people, the earth is dry, white and salty.
When the community lost its rice crops, residents turned to shellfish collecting and fishing for easy money and food.
But when the mangroves die they take fish breeding grounds with them; illegal over fishing takes its toll, as well.
Now, fishing vessels must go out farther for their catch, and it takes more time, money and effort to earn a living.
"If we lose the mangrove, we lose everything, we just lose our life," she says.
Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork
Twitter: / ap_archive
Facebook: / aparchives
Instagram: / apnews
You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...
Информация по комментариям в разработке