Watching the Desertification of Portugal

Climate Breakdown and Desertification

Dried up pond (Photo: Steve Andrews)
I have been living in Portugal since late 2014 and over the years have been watching the changes in the weather and to the countryside. Every year we have had very hot weather and wildfires and droughts are becoming the new ‘normal’ here due to Climate Breakdown. It is getting worse and I feel I am watching the early stages of the desertification of Portugal.

Ponds Dry Up

Cracked mud (Photo: Steve Andrews)

I am sure that amphibians and other aquatic wildlife are having a hard time due to the lack of water. A river near where I live has run dry in the past and this year some roadside pools have already dried up and are just cracked mud. This is very unfortunate news for the small colony of Iberian Water Frogs that were breeding there. Only a month or so back there were thousands of tadpoles in these pools and Water Starwort was an aquatic plant that was growing.

Iberian Water Frog tadpoles (Photo: Steve Andrews)

Sadly the hot, dry weather has evaporated all the water before the tadpoles could complete their metamorphosis and they have all perished. I had moved some to the deeper pools but it was in vain because they dried up too.

Wildflowers

French lavender (Photo: Steve Andrews)

The wildflowers here are spectacular in spring with so many species bringing a splash of colour to the countryside. French Lavender, Candytuft, Campanula lusitanica, Silene colorata (a bright pink Catchfly), Common Poppies, Three-leafed Snowflake, Narrow-leafed Lupin, St John’s Wort, Crown Daisy, Asphodel, Toadflax, Tassel Hyacinth, Blue Hound’s Tongue, Scrambling Gromwell, and Sage-leafed Cistus are just some of the colourful plants that beautified my country walks back in April and May. It is hard to think that all these pretty flowers were growing well not long ago on ground which is now brown and tinder dry. Where even the grass has died down and the paths are dust.

Flowers in Spring (Photo: Steve Andrews)

Earlier in the year there were countless butterflies. I would expect to see Swallowtails, Red Admirals, Green Hairstreaks, Spanish Festoons, Clouded Yellows, Speckled Woods, Small Coppers, and Small Whites and would never fail to be disappointed.

Green Hairstreak (Photo: Steve Andrews)

A bit later the Meadow Browns became the most commonly seen butterfly but now there are hardly any about.  There are hardly any flowers left from which they could feed and the vegetation has died back or is conspicuously brown and shrivelled up. In the four years before this year I have never seen it so dry and so dead looking as it is now. I live in Quinta Do Conde, a town between Lisbon and Setubal, so am not in the hot south of the country. If it is like this here I dread to think what it must be like in the Algarve.

Skeleton Weed (Photo: Steve Andrews)

But not all plants are doing badly in the hot and dry conditions. Some are colonising new ground and others are adapting. The Skeleton Weed (Chondrilla juncea) is a species that is happy growing in arid places and I see more and more of the plant on waste ground where I live and even growing in cracks in paving. It is an invasive weed that has become a problem in many parts of the world and after wildfires it will rapidly colonise new ground where other vegetation has been killed.
Black Mustard, or a species of mustard that earlier in the season looks very like Black Mustard, is forming bushy clumps when it goes to seed here. They resemble tumbleweeds and can easily break off helping to distribute the plant.

Mustard clump (Photo: Steve Andrews)

Wildfires

As already mentioned, wildfires are becoming a new ‘norm’ for Portugal and can now occur all year round, due to Climate Breakdown and droughts which can now take place even in the winter. These fires, in addition to destroying farms and houses, are killing animals and people, as well as vast numbers of trees of native species. Pines and Cork Oak can regenerate if not too badly burned but when the trees are weakened and if drought continues they become very susceptible to disease. The Pine Wilt Nematode, spread by various wood-boring beetles is killing pines throughout the country. When the rains finally do arrive another problem the countryside faces is the erosion of the fertile top soil that is washed away.

The Portuguese authorities have implemented legal measures requiring landowners to take action by clearing undergrowth,  brushwood and scrub that could easily burn. Many areas where this has been done will have destroyed wildlife habitat and many dormant and active species sheltering in the vegetation. Efforts to provide safety for farmers and residents of Portugal, are surely taking a toll on the flora and fauna of the country.

Permaculture as the Solution

Desertification of Spain and Portugal

I have known about the predicted desertification of Mediterranean countries including Spain and Portugal before I came to live here. Sadly I am now watching the problem in action. I was searching online for information on desertification in Portugal and found this very detailed and excellent lecture by Doug Crouch, who describes how the system of modern farming is degrading the land further. He also proposes permaculture as the solution. He explains what has been going wrong and what can be done to reverse the ongoing growth of what he calls the “New Sahara.”

The Heart of the World’s on Fire: Arhuaco and Kogi Need Our Help!

Fires in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta

The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is a massive pyramid-shaped mountain in Colombia and home to the Kogi, Arhuaco, Wiwa and Kankuamo indigenous people. To these tribes, who represent all that is left of the ancient Tairona culture, it is “The Heart of the World.” At least 800 hectares have been ravaged by fires, family homes and livelihoods destroyed, as well as rare flora and fauna also destroyed in the blaze. Traditionally constructed houses and buildings used for the ceremonies of these people have been burned to the ground. The Arhuaco and Kogi communities have been devastated.

The village of Séynimin sustained terrible damage. It is located in the eastern part of the Arhuaco territory. In the foothills of the Guatapurí river, jurisdiction of the municipality of Valledupar. The village of Waniyaka is reported to have been razed to the ground as well. The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta has in the past been declared as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, and yet now that disaster has struck, the English media has been ominously silent, leaving only the Spanish press to get the story out to the world. I only know of one report in English!

As many as 80 families have been affected by the fires and 50 houses have been reported to have been destroyed. The Arhuaco and Kogi people are appealing for help. On 1 March  they declared themselves in a state of economic, social, cultural and ecological emergency, with fires still active in several points of the Sierra Nevada. Firefighters battling the blaze have had difficulty accessing the affected areas due to the location high on the mountain, 3,500 metres above sea level. Smoke has made a difficult situation worse.
Kogi Mamos
The leaders of the Kogis, who are known as Mamos or Mamas, came to the world’s attention back in 1990 in a ground-breaking BBC documentary entitled The Heart of the World: The Elder Brother’s Warning. It was directed by Alan Ereira and explained how the Kogis, who regard themselves as the “ Elder Brother” and call us the “Younger Brother” wanted to break their silence by issuing a warning to the world. They had seen more than enough signs in the ecosystem of their sacred mountain to know that we are in danger of destroying life on Earth. The top of the Sierra Nevada was no longer covered in ice and snow, the clouds had gone. These were signs we now recognise as being caused by Climate Change. It was this film that first enabled me to understand what was happening with regard to what was then called Global Warming. By the way the transcript for the film can be read and the documentary viewed HERE. I really recommend it to anyone who didn’t see it when it was first broadcast or who has not heard about the Kogis until now.
How to Help

I have known about this since 25 February after being alerted by my Arhuaco friend Iku de Gonawindua, who is an an ambassador for his people, and who had tweeted about the disaster. Since then I have been spreading the word on social media. I have been waiting in vain for the world media to report the story but, as already explained, the English language media have been silent. This is why I am blogging about it here. This is a copy of information I was given: “These families lost everything after saving their lives in fires that took 3 days, requesting support from the relevant entities and required from blankets, cooking utensils, food, work tools to rebuild the town ...In the city of Valledupar-Cesar will be the headquarters of aid to the Carrera 9 # 3-69 barrio los campanos headquarters indigenous house resguardo arhuaco, in Bogotá headquarters Redepaz Carrera 10 # 19-65 office 905.” Please help in any way you can! Sharing the news helps if you are not in a position to help with donations!