Exodus from Casamance: Climate Change Endangers Lush Vegetation

Senegal is regularly affected by a variety of climatic hazards, including torrential rains during the rainy season that cause frequent flooding and landslides. Large parts of the country also suffer from slower environmental processes, including drought, sea level rise and coastal erosion, deforestation of mangroves, and loss of freshwater resources.

Climatic hazards negatively impact the livelihoods and lifestyles of affected communities and influence migration dynamics in the country and the region. Rural exodus and irregular migration are a common coping strategy, especially for young people who see no opportunities to make ends meet.

Climate change also has direct impact in agriculture in Casamance: salinization of arable land and underwater sources, especially in coastal regions due to coastal erosion and rise of sea levels, change in rain patterns affecting underwater sources, loss of plant diversity (enhanced by illegal logging).

In this garden in Casamance, the well needs to be dug anew every few months. Water levels in the wells can fluctuate according to the rainy or dry seasons in some areas. One way of managing this is to store water in basins, which in turn requires to treat the water to avoid disease.

Water scarcity in drought-prone areas has posed a challenge to women in particular. As they primarily work in market gardening, the negative impact of climate change is not only a loss of livelihood for them; they are challenged in water management as they need to find ways to provide water for household use in drought prone areas. 

Women are traditionally in charge of cooking and thus have to make sure they have enough water for household use for their families. The work in the field takes its toll on women. Pulling up the water in heavy buckets from the well is hard work. 

This community reintegration project was carried out through the EU-IOM Joint Initiative for the Protection and Reintegration of Migrants funded by the European Union Trust Fund for Africa. It integrates agroecological methods, helping to rationalize water, solar and other energy resources. Having worked in vegetable gardening during their time in Libya, Salif Badji and Manding Tacky mobilized women and elders of the village to join the work in the community garden upon their returned. IOM equipped the returnees with technical skills and equipment to start their own agroecological project; the plot was set up, a well dug, and a fence built around the perimeter. Read more about their story here.