Zimbabwe: Community based early warning system vital in a changing climate

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There are […] community-based telling signs which serve to communicate the coming of drought or enough rains. These can be highlighted through studying the behavior of birds, insects, plants, trees or the atmosphere.

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With regard to EWS in Zimbabwe and the southern African region, that is where the comprehensive knowledge of the meteorological personnel, climate change experts and community-based enforcers become handy. This is in terms of disseminating the most needed and relevant weather and climate information, predictions, forecasting and meteorological data. In this regard, local communities need to have knowledge of the above, in order to sufficiently prepare themselves for the worst scenarios or better fortunes.

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As communities and target situations study and observe the behaviours of plants, birds, animals, trees and insects, they would be harnessing comprehensive and sustainable networks of IKS, sometimes referred to as the community knowledge of knowing. People would be empowered to have sustainable knowledge of what is in store for them in terms of the approaching agricultural season. There are migratory birds which are strongly associated with abundant rains and they travel from as far as Europe to southern Africa, some are known as the Black and White-Storks or Mashuramurove/Amangabuzane in Vernacular. Some birds are indigenous to southern Africa like Haya (Cackoo) and if it cries continuously then rains will be imminent. Swallows/Nyenga-Nyenga/ Izinkonjane, the fast, swift and deceptive small birds are witnessed in large numbers before the onset of the rain season or during the rainy season and they are believed to feed as they fly.

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In this regard, early warning systems should come early as the name suggests, and they are vital tools to disaster risk reductions. The indigenous knowledge systems in this regard, are localised, collaborative and transferrable, but as the local communities do so, they should always try also to be knowledgeable about climate change phenomena. Local communities have relied on commercial channels of weather predictions like radio, television and the print media for quite a long time and the results have not been that favorable. The reason behind this is that the local knowledge of knowing indicators or IKS have been the missing links hence they need to be integrated. It is also significant that, before local communities gather expertise in EWS, they have to make use of their knowledge of IKS as entry points.

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