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Mocho to be showcased at climate change meeting in Nairobi 

By Dawn Roper, Freelance Writer

Kingston, October 10, 2006 (Panos) - The rural community of Mocho in Clarendon will be highlighted at the United Nations Global Climate Change meeting to be held in Nairobi, Kenya in November.

“Panos Caribbean has been working with Mocho for almost a year documenting the community’s experience re climate change, disaster preparedness and land degradation. We will be sharing our experience with the project thus far at a panel discussion in Nairobi,” explained Indi Mclymont, Programme Officer/Journalist at Panos Caribbean.

“We are now preparing a policy briefing on Mocho which we will present in Nairobi. We will also talk about the awareness levels of the community on climate change coming out of the 45 or more testimonies that we collected in the community,” said Mclymont, who is also the coordinator of the project in Mocho.

Panos started the Mocho Oral Testimonies Project late 2005 with the training of twelve Mocho residents in interviewing skills. In January 2006 these residents interviewed approximately 45 persons from the community. The testimonies are now being edited and compiled into a booklet for national and international circulation. While the booklet will not be ready in time for UN climate change conference in Nairobi, excerpts from the testimonies will be used in the policy briefing.

Panos is working to raise the awareness of the community on climate change issues. Over the next 6 months (starting in October) residents from the community will be trained on issues such as climate change and community adaptation, photojournalism and the environment and energy efficiency.

“Through this project Panos will build the community’s capacity to deal with its environmental issues,” Mclymont said.

Mocho mobilising to fight climate change

In mid September for example, Panos had its first community meeting to fully introduce the project to the community. At that meeting, Dale Rankine - National Coordinator of the Global Environment Facility Small Grants Programme (GEF SGP) – called on residents to find ways to cope with the effects of climate change on their lives.

“God helps those who help themselves, so unless we work together we will all suffer,” said Rankine, to the approximately sixty residents gathered at Lennon High School in Cedars District, Mocho last month, to hear presentations on ‘Climate Change and Community Development.’

He urged the residents to develop community tourism in Mocho as a sustainable, environmentally friendly and economically viable strategy to cope with climate change. He explained that climate change is already affecting global tourism trends; therefore the Caribbean region must expect a decline in the number of visitors because of it.

“You find that in the Caribbean the winter tourist season doesn’t start in December again, because the golf courses in America remain unfrozen for a longer period of time. So when December comes, we are getting less and less tourists. We cannot sell the whole thing about ‘sand, sea and sun’ again. We have to look beyond that now,” he said while adding that small countries like Jamaica, will have to find more creative ways (such as community tourism) to attract visitors.

“We have to say, ‘there are some butterflies in Jamaica that are in no other place in the world. Come and look at them.’ Or ‘there is a little community named Mocho that actually did something in climate change that nobody else tried,” he said. “We have to start looking at the value added to other things that make Jamaica stand out.”

Panos Caribbean has implemented an Oral Testimonies Project in the Mocho community to highlight and document the community’s history, climate change experience, land degradation and disaster issues.

According to McLymont, Panos Caribbean selected the agricultural community of Mocho, because it was one of the worst hit communities during hurricane Ivan in 2004. She added that through the Oral Testimonies Project, which is also partly funded by the GEF SGP, Panos Caribbean is helping the community to mobilise itself to speak out about its issues and to develop the community.

Panos Caribbean is an information agency with the mandate to give “voice to the voiceless” on environmental issues, women and children’s rights, and HIV/AIDS.