FROM THE FIELD: Comoros farmers battle climate change
Economic Development
Farmers in the Comoros islands are learning, with the support of the UN, to adapt to dramatic shifts in the climate which have contributed to the deterioration of agriculture across the Indian Ocean archipelago.
Increasingly unpredictable weather patterns including a severe decrease in rainfall have led to soil erosion and widespread deforestation as well as decreased crop yields.
A UN climate change expert panel determined in a special report on Monday that the world needs to move much faster and more dramatically, if global warming is to be contained to anything like the levels demanded by the 2015 Paris Agreement.
The Comoros sits some 300 kilometres off the coast of East Africa and is amongst the most underdeveloped countries in the world.
But now, a project backed by UN Environment has been launched to plant 350,000 trees per year across the three islands of the archipelago, in the hope that reforestation will protect the environment and boost development there.
Read more about the challenges that Comorian farmers face here.