赞比西河的艰苦生活
赞比西河的艰苦生活
随着全球气候暖化的加剧，赞比西河流域和世界其他贫困的海滨和河滨区域面临的风险不断增长
赞比西河的艰苦生活
对于非洲南部的数百万人，赞比西河 (Zambezi River) 既是运输信道、捕鱼场、喷泉，也是洗衣店和游泳池。从源头赞比亚西北部高地一条涓涓流淌的泉水开始，这条河蜿蜒近 1700 英哩，穿过安哥拉 (Angola) 东部的森林，流经纳米比亚 (Namibia)、博茨瓦纳 (Botswana) 和津巴布韦 (Zimbabwe) 的边界，最后分散到莫桑比克 (Mozambique) 的数十条河道，形成一个三角洲。
随着全球气候暖化的加剧，赞比西河流域和世界其他贫困的海滨和河滨区域面临的风险不断增长。「对于非洲而言，气候变化已经不是遥远的未来，而是当下的危机。」联合国秘书长古特雷斯 (António Guterres) 今年 8 月表示。
Natural Disasters in Southern Africa
Data: Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters
沿着赞比西河旅行两周之后，你就能发现依赖这条河维持生计的人们面临的种种困境。上游水位已接近 50 年来的最低水平，导致农作物失收、渔获量减少，以及为赞比亚提供 80% 电力供应的大坝发电量骤减。在莫桑比克，两场严重的热带风暴引发的洪水已导致数百人死亡，以及数十亿美元的损失。
许多地方遭洪水侵袭，还有一些地方则面临干旱，今年大片地区的粟米 (该地区主要食物) 几乎没有收成。联合国世界粮食计划署称，由于气候变化，该地区面临严重粮食不安全的人口达到创纪录的 4500 万人。安哥拉将需要超过 120 万公吨粮食才能弥补农业失收带来的缺口。在莫桑比克，国际货币基金组织 (IMF) 把该国 2019 年增长预期下调到 2% 以下，为近 20 年来最低。津巴布韦正面临历史上最严重的粮食短缺。
Down the Zambezi
Data: Natural Earth
在赞比亚西部，该国其中一个部族洛兹人 (Lozi people) 取消了年度的迁居仪式——每年赞比西河低洼地带的河水上涨时，国王会乘坐皇家接驳船前往地势较高的地方；仪式的负责人说，他 73 年来从未见过如此严重的干旱，雨季结束时本应该有充足水源的沼泽区，如今已经干旱到可以在上面驾车。
赞比亚总统伦古 (Edgar Lungu) 今年 9 月对议会发表年度讲话时 44 次提到气候变化。他的政府甚至考虑修建一条连接赞比西河和刚果河的运河——这几乎不可能实现，因为需要引水上山。「无法拥有足够的水、无法制造足够的电力，以及无法种植足够的食物来养活人民，这一切很大程度上都是气候变化造成的，」伦古对国会议员说。「这是一个非常严重的问题，我们不能掉以轻心。」
The mighty river starts with a whimper. Where it emerges from its underground spring in Zambia, the flow is at the lowest level Willie Chiwaya has seen in his nine years as a guide at the Zambezi’s source.
The banks of the Zambezi on the river’s lower reaches in Mozambique, which is seeking $3.2 billion to rebuild after a pair of devastating cyclones. The UN says Africa will suffer more than any other continent from the effects of climate change.
What the world knows as Victoria Falls is called Mosi oa Tunya—“The Smoke That Thunders”—by locals. The planet’s biggest sheet of falling water is 1.2 miles wide and drops 328 feet into a chasm. At the peak of its flow around April, it churns up a mist that can be seen 30 miles away. But this year, with the water at its lowest level in more than two decades, there’s little smoke and no thunder.
The Zambezi is home to two of the region’s biggest hydropower dams, which provide stark examples of the varied effects of shifts in the climate. Kariba, on the border of Zimbabwe and Zambia, is nearing its lowest level in decades, while the river’s lower reaches are flooding.https://nei.st/?p=9115&preview=true
To avoid draining the lake behind the Kariba dam to dangerously low levels, officials have been cutting the outflow—and thus power production, causing blackouts across Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Nyami-Nyami, the Zambezi Snake spirit, is said to live in the Kariba reservoir. Locals blamed him for floods in the 1950s that killed workers and slowed the dam’s construction. These days, they say the drought proves Nyami-Nyami is angry, and traditional leaders have planned rituals to placate him.
Just 120 miles downstream from Kariba, at Cahora Bassa in Mozambique, the reservoir was so full the floodgates had to be opened.
When Cyclone Idai struck Mozambique, it flooded an area the size of Luxembourg. This house, 28 miles from the coast and more than 100 miles from where the cyclone’s eye made landfall, was quickly inundated, forcing the occupants to flee to safety.
In Caia, Mozambique, where Abraham Kasenga fishes for a living, the river rose to its highest level since 2001, making it too dangerous for him to use his dugout for two months. “Without the Zambezi, I’m poor,” says Kasenga, 37. “I have no work. I have nothing.”
Fish accounts for about half of Zambia’s animal protein consumption, but breeding grounds were dry this year. On the banks of the river in southwestern Zambia, Vincent Mubita plucks small fish called mudsuckers from his net, clipping their spiky fins with pliers. In normal times, he would feed the fish to his dogs while his family would eat the bream and tigerfish he brings in. But this year, mudsuckers are all he can catch.
Climate change becomes a vicious circle. Namasiku Imasiku cuts down trees, covers the wood in sand, and burns it to make charcoal that she bags and sells in town, three hours away. More people are doing the same as rural incomes slide, causing prices to plunge and accelerating deforestation, a major contributor to global warming. With the water so low, dams are generating far less electricity, so there are plenty of buyers for the charcoal, which they need for cooking.
In Mozambique, heavy rains along the Zambezi flooded cornfields late in the growing season, rotting the roots and decimating the harvest. And this was before two Category 4 cyclones hit Mozambique in consecutive months—the first time in recorded history that has happened. Floods killed more than 700 people in the country and ruined 300,000 acres of crops.
The UN says Mozambique will need more than $600 million for food and other aid for citizens hit by flooding after the two cyclones. Zinanga Zongololo, a mother of seven, lost her entire corn crop this year. “We have no support from the government,” she says. “If they could at least just give us seeds.”
Rice and vegetables typically thrive on the fertile Barotse floodplain, and cattle graze on its grasses. Farmer Lubinda Kawana says the water should be neck-deep, but this year it barely covers his ankles—forcing ranchers to sell their herds before the worst of the dry season.
Kalaluka Kalima, a 32-year-old environmental engineer, works for a charity in Mwandi, a town of 4,000 in southwestern Zambia. While richer countries produce the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, Zambia and its neighbors pay the price: a total failure of this year’s corn crop. “The farmers harvested nothing,” he says.
The Armando Emilio Guebuza Bridge, traversed by a highway that connects the north and the south of Mozambique, wasn’t damaged by this year’s devastating cyclones. But many others were, and the government is seeking $3.2 billion to rebuild. The UN says adapting to climate change could cost Africa $50 billion annually by 2050.
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