The climate change rage

A rise in your body temperature is usually something to worry about. In fact, an elevated body temperature could be a sign of a serious infection similar to which a rise in global temperatures should worry humanity as this will interfere with the balance that enables organisms on this planet, including you and me, to function properly. 

Well, next month the world’s attention will for at least two weeks be drawn to Cairo, Egypt for the 27th United Nations climate change conference dubbed African Climate Change.

Key concerns include the severe drought experienced across the Horn of Africa amongst other climatic phenomena. However, another unexplored effect of climate change is its effects on Kenya’s tourist attractions.

Kenya is recognised globally as one of the continent’s finest tourist destinations, from the big five animals, to the majestic coastline on the Indian Ocean, the dramatic Great Rif Valley, to world renowned historical heritage sites, unfortunately none of them has been spared by the effects of climate change.

Mombasa County, the economic hub of the coastal region, appears to be business as usual; but a closer look reveals how climate change is affecting this coastal jewel.

Our first destination is the over 400 year old tourist attraction Fort Jesus, when viewed from the air it seems to take the shape of a man. This Portuguese fort designed by Italian Giovanni Battista Cairati was built between 1593 and 1956.

The masonry techniques, building materials and labour are believed to have been provided by the local Swahili people under the master builder Gaspar Rodriguez, a Portuguese.

The fort, which took 3 years to complete, was built to secure the safety of Portuguese nationals living on the east coast of Africa when it was captured by the Omanis who used it as barracks and later captured by the British who used it as a prison   before it was declared a national park in 1958.

Fort Jesus was declared a world heritage site by UNESCO and highlighted as one of the most outstanding and well preserved examples of 16th century Portuguese military fortifications. But this heritage is at stake due to climate change.

It is in Mombasa Old Town, also known as Mji wa Kale, where we meet 67-year-old Hassan Mohammed Hassan. The father of four was an educator at the Fort Jesus museum. 

He was employed by National Museums of Kenya in his early twenties and hasn’t known another employer ever since.

Hassan retired from the National Museums of Kenya in 2018. For him, his family and hundreds of others the fort provided them with an income for many years. 

“Nikiandikwa nilikuwa nimeshaoa, watoto wangu wamewahi kusoma pale, nimeweza kuwasomesha,wamewahi kuenda chuo kikuu,wawili wameenda chuo kikuu,wawili wana shahada, mpaka masters, mmoja ana masomo ya accounts na mwinhine ni mwalimu, hivyo basi wote nimewasomesha nikiwa pale,” he says.

But hassan is now worried about losing the fort to the rising sea levels.

‘Jumba la kale kama lile Fort Jesus lataka wakati wowote laangaliwa, mahali ambapo kuna dharura ya kurekebishwa irekebishwe lakini bila kupaondondoa  ile hali yake ilivyo, ibakie vilevile. Ngome ile kujengwa kwake ni tarehe 11/4/1593, leo hii tukiiacha ikapotea ni hasara kubwa,” he says.

He heeds our call to meet up at the fort, 12 years since he retired. Today he is elated to be back, however on a different mission, to tell a different story; a story of destruction and disaster in waiting should humanity not change its ways.

 We meet Fatma Twahr, the principal curator of Fort Jesus, “Aside from rise in sea level and erosion that comes from it, is that climate change also brings about unpredicted rainfall, intense rainfall that that comes from upstream, this rainfall is mainly felt by our sites as it discharges to the sea , rainfall coming in huge volumes through the site also weakens the physical fabric of the site, so rainfall from the top erosion from the bottom, our sites are at a major risk right now as a result of climate change.”

In the coastal region alone, Kenya boasts of over 40 heritage sites, some are now submerged with those situated along the sea front at the greatest risk. Any changes in the sea levels threaten their very existence. 

But Mombasa is not our only focus, less than 100 kilometres away lies the resort town of Malindi in Kilifi County; here we find another historic structure; the iconic Vasco da Gama pillar, built in 1498 by the Portuguese and named after the Portuguese troop leader Vasco da Gama.

It was significant as it was used to direct navigators and sailors and could be seen from the high seas. This is the oldest remaining Portuguese architectural treasure in the tropical Africa; its existence is however threatened by the rise in sea level and the strong coastal tides.

The pillar which has survived over 500 years of existence is on the verge of being submerged into the sea.

“Malindi town itself today is not where it was during the time of the Portuguese, part of it has been taken by the sea, we have about 200m of Malindi town which now lie under the water, that’s a landscape, historical site but a city,” Caeser Bita, an underwater archeologist, tells us.

We arrive at the Vasco da Gama pillar evirons on a weekday morning at 10am to observe the oceans behavior, four hours later, at around 3pm the sea basin is occupied, the water levels have raised tremendously and could pose a risk to those nearby, the effects of the strong tides cannot be ignored.

The following day at 10am we return to the same spot, the presence of these sea weeds on the path an indication that the Indian Ocean had overflowed to the path around the pillar during the night.

Our tour continues, still in Kilifi County. Our next stop is Jumba la Mtwana, famously known as Jumba Ruins, located 15 minutes from Mtwapa town. Jumba ruins an ancient stone town set amid shady trees which archeologists say have grown over time.

The name Jumba la Mtwana is loosely translated to ‘The large house of the slaves”. The history of this place is based on the excavation and a strong belief is that Swahili and Arab nationals settled here.

Although many of the structures are no more, it boasts of mosques, tombs and houses.

Jumba ruins lies right opposite the sea shore, this making it vulnerable to the strong ocean tides.

“Mfano mzuri wa kuonyesha yale maji yana athari ni kwamba mti kama huu,mti mkubwa wenyewe  lakini ilibidi uangushwe kwa sababu maji yamekuwa yakichimba mzizi wa miti ndiyo maana hatimaye ilibidi uanguke,na tumejaribu kupanda miti mingine… hata hapa nyuma yangu kuna huu mti ambao wakati wa high tides mzizi wake unachimbwa,huu mti umebakisha labda mzizi ule wa kule tu,” Hashim Mzomba, Jumba’s curator says.

The future is bleak as climatic patterns have degenerated at alarming levels. Interventions are urgently and desperately needed.

 “Maji yameweza kupanda kwa sababu ya uharibifu wa mazingira… maji yalikuwa hayafiki mbali sana, yaja mpaka mwisho wake,nikikumbuka mimi yatakuwa ni chini ya hapa nilipo mimi, lakini kuweza kuwa yamefika mpaka ndani ya ngome kule yalikuwa bado hayajafika,” says Hassan.

Twahir notes: “For Fort Jesus, we have been experiencing regular erosion along the sea front where by a good portion of the front of the fort seats right on the high water mark, experiencing that erosion on its base every now and then, there was need for us to collect the rocks that have been eroded and put them back as in you cement them back, but of course that’s a temporary solution because they will still be impacted by erosion.”

An in-depth research sponsored by UNESCO was then conducted to gauge the impact of erosion by the sea waves on the wall of the fort.

We were lucky to have met some UNESCO officers, we got some funds that allowed us to engage engineers who undertook the study and confirmed that there is impact to sea erosion from climate change and that the structure of Fort Jesus is at risk because it was hitting the base of the front of fort, cracks hard been noticed at some point in time, using that report, we were able to reach out to the government ,and I must say we were lucky that we were heard and we managed to receive funds to undertake the sea wall.

According to Dr. Fredrick Manthi , a senior research scientist and head of the paleontology section at the National Museums of Kenya, the Kenyan national government pumped in over 500 million shillings into the Fort Jesus sea wall project which was designed to withstand the full force of the ocean waves in order to protect the endangered fort.

“The site was handed over to the contractor in June 2017, for the first phase, phase 2 involved backfilling, stabilization of whatever was backfield to create garden in the space which was reclaimed… the ground on which I am standing was once part of the sea, but the underlying fact is, it is a reclaimed land as a result of the sea wall to save on the stability of Fort Jesus,” Twahir says.

The National Museums of Kenya in the year 2020 embarked on the construction of a Ksh.60 million concrete sea wall which has however not been sufficient to provide the support to the pillar as it was intended.

The walls have been overcome by the strong ocean tides and barely two years down the line, part of the wall is already washed away, exposing the pillar and sending a louder message that more money is needed to try and save the pillar.

“I was there a month ago and the pillar is threatened, some work which was done earlier has not really secured the place well but now I am happy to say that we have gotten support from the government through sports funds, we are doing further rehabilitation on the pillar,” Dr. Manthi notes.

“We got close to 25million shillings, but we believe that that money should really help us do some very good work at the pillar,” he adds.

For Jumba Ruins, a mitigation measure is urgently needed as the structure is on the beach, which is publicly accessible. Of greater importance is that it is a turtle nesting area; the green turtle nesting in the area are endangered species hence whichever solution will be implemented must accommodate these organisms.

Among hundreds of Kenyan heritage sites which are exposed to harsh climatic conditions and need urgent interventions backed by finances are the Gedi ruins in Malindi, Mama Ngina heritage site which sits on a cliff with military structures.

“In the last few years, other sites such as Gede ruins also face threats and these are effects of climate change, we’ve seen levels of not just the sea but also lakes across the country rise tremendously, like in in 2020, we know that lake Turkana for example level of lake Turkana went up in a big way, lake Baringo was even very serious, because some hotels have been swallowed by the lake, lake bogoria in fact hot springs in lake Bogoria  all been covered,” Dr. Manthi says.

Resources put to use to salvage these national monuments cannot be compared to the revenues collected from tourists and returns cannot be expected anytime soon.

“For heritage you don’t look at how much you have spend and when and how you are going to recoup that money, it’s our mandate as an institution and also as a country to take care of our heritage, whether or not it gives us money back,” he adds.

In the war against climate change, civil society organizations previously filed a case at the international criminal court of justice to have countries which have ignored the safety measures necessary to curb green gas emissions brought to book, but this was without success.

During the 26th conference of parties on climate change held in Glasgow, United Kingdom, last year it was agreed that the world needed to reach zero green house gas emissions by 2050, and to be on track for this; global emissions needed to be halved by 2030.

While the promise made at cop 26 still remain a promise, every passing minute is important as some countries work round the clock to put in place special adaption measures given that climate change effects will be the new normal if the necessary interventions are not implemented quickly.

Kenya must ensure that it is not left behind, despite the finite resources. The government of Kenya has shown a level of willingness to save Kenya’s rich historical and cultural structures.

Experts attest that if only the world would regulate human activities, it is possible to reverse climate change effects.

“When I was doing my studies in Malindi sometimes in 2014, I did an excavation next to the shore line in Malindi town, and I was able to recover two sea-shores at a difference of 2metres each, meaning the sea was high at some point and then it receded then it came back after some time,” Bita says.

And in what should serve as a warning shot to the world should expert advice be ignored;

 “The sea is coming again and forcing people to move away, so when you run away from your village it is covered, that now becomes ecosystem of the sea, your houses, your home is covered, so archeologists will come later to find a covered village, like the lakes in rift valley, Baringo and such lakes, that are rising and people are running away from the lakes, villages are being taken away, in like 50 years people will be able to dive in lakes and see houses,” he adds.

Kenya contributes only 0.1% to the global climate change equation, with Africa contributing just 4% of global green house gas emissions and yet the country and continent suffers greatly from the effects of climate change.

As Africa prepares to host the 27th United Nations conference of parties on climate change, the continent will be pushing for recognition of Africa as a continent on the receiving end of actions caused by other nations and continents. 

Charles Mwangi of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance ( PACJA) says, “Of importance is the whole question of adaptation in Glasgow, it was agreed that we need to have global goal on adaptation and it was agreed that we have discussions around it…while we have global goal on mitigation, we don’t have global goal on adaptation while adaptation is key for Africa because climate change impacts are with us.”

For now it is a wait-and-see strategy for the African continent, with all focus on the conference, where some firm decisions to arrest the runaway impacts of climate change could be made.