Category: AFRICA

Hi everyone! Before I begin this second post of the week, I’d like to mention that out of all the countries I have searched on, Madagascar seems to be the least studied country. There are not many scholarly articles on pollution in Madagascar. It took me relatively much longer to find relevant papers to review. Nonetheless, these papers caught my interest.

In my previous post, I specifically mentioned how water-borne diseases can cause children to be malnourished. I found a paper that examined levels of nutrition in children in a unique way. Zielinska-Dawidziak et al. (2021) studied the nutritional status of Madagascar girls, by studying the concentration of various elements in their hair. I did not know you could do that! They compared hair samples from girls who lived in both rural and urban areas, and found these following elements: Al, As, Cd, Cr, Hg, Ni, Pb, Sn and Sb (refer to your periodic table for better visualization!). Below is their study design. Doesn’t it look fascinating?

They concluded many different things, but to generalize, they argued that the place of residence (rural vs urban area) influenced the level of pollutants in the girls’ hair. This was also mainly because of where their food came from. Nevertheless, they summed up that there were high contents of Al, followed by Cd and Cr in all the hair of these girls. They also found that younger girls were more exposed to Al, Cr, and Ni.

Meanwhile, Dasgupta et al.’s (2015) paper examined indoor air pollution, and ways to better improve current conditions. Unfortunately, they argued that current measures in Madagascar to improve air quality indoors are ineffective – “Ethanol is significantly cleaner than biomass fuels, and a larger kitchen significantly improves the quality of household air. Although improved wood stoves with a chimney were effective in reducing concentrations of carbon monoxide in the kitchen, improved charcoal stoves were found to have no significant impact on air quality compared with traditional charcoal stoves” (p. 345). If you read the paper, you will also wonder why these measures were even suggested in the first place. Were the consultants who implemented this solution aware of its inadequacies? Is this the reason why many of the initiatives that aim to manage pollution fail? Why are professionals not involved in the decision-making process?

Finally, Qin et al.’s (2021) paper discusses whether waste to biomass energy conversion is possible in Madagascar. Currently, biomass energy accounts for 80% of Madagascar’s energy source. Most of the biomass is sourced from wood and solid charcoal. Hence, Qin et al. tried to find out if advanced technologies could be developed, so that there could be a better utilization of other forms of waste, such as farming residuals, animal wastes, and forest waste. These technologies include fermentation, gasification, and torrefaction – “Gasification converted biomass wastes to combustible gas; torrefaction can increase the energy density in solid biomass energy and be used to produce biocoal briquette; fermentation can transfer these biomass wastes to biogas or ethanol fuel. Advanced conversion technologies can not only improve the efficiency of energy utilization but also reduce the cost of power generation” (p. 8). All of these are promising avenues for the government to look into.

But can Madagascar really achieve an efficient circular economy?

Up next, Mongolia. See you in the next one! ✿

References

Dasgupta, S., Martin, P. & Samad, H. A. (2015) Lessons from Rural Madagascar on Improving Air Quality in the Kitchen. The Journal of Environment & Development. 24(3), 345-369. Available from: https://journals-sagepub-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/doi/full/10.1177/1070496515588590?utm_source=summon&utm_medium=discovery-provider [Accessed: 4 March 2022].

Qin, L., Wang, M., Zhu, J., Wei, Y., Zhou, X. & He, Z. (2021) Towards Circular Economy through Waste to Biomass Energy in Madagascar. Complexity. 1-10. Available from: https://www.hindawi.com/journals/complexity/2021/5822568/ [Accessed: 4 March 2022].

Zielinska-Dawidziak, M., Czlapka-Matyasik, M., Wojciechowska, Z., Proch, J. & Niedzielski, P. (2021) Concentration of Selected Elements in the Hair of Madagascar Girls in Relation to Nutritional Status and Place of Residence. British Journal of Nutrition. 1-11. Available from: https://www-cambridge-org.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/core/journals/british-journal-of-nutrition/article/concentration-of-selected-elements-in-the-hair-of-madagascar-girls-in-relation-to-nutritional-status-and-place-of-residence/C4F9F1268EA957D286284F9853B99C54 [Accessed: 4 March 2022].

Hi everyone! To start off the week, let’s check out Madagascar’s air quality! As seen in the screenshot from IQAir, Madagascar’s air seems relatively clean. Does this mean Madagascar is free from pollution?

Let’s take a look at this video:

You can easily see how Madagascar is as polluted as many of the other countries we previously looked at in my earlier blogposts! Can the Pollution Action Plan and Global Alliance on Health and Pollution really help the people in Madagascar fight pollution? Or is it just an uncommitted initiative to satisfy certain parties in the country?

I would not have known how polluted Madagascar was if I did not search it up on various news sites. UNICEF reported that more than 1 in 5 deaths in Madagascar is caused by pollution exposure. Just as in Indonesia, car idling in constant traffic jams is one of the major reasons for air pollution. Just as in Haiti and Fiji, indoor cooking and the use of coal-operated stoves lead to various respiratory diseases. Water pollution that happens in Madagascar, and likewise, in many other countries in the Global South is due to widespread open defecation. In turn, these contaminated water supply causes children to suffer from diarrhea and in turn, malnutrition because these children are unable to digest and absorb the relevant nutrients to survive. You can read more about indoor air pollution in Madagascar here, or here.

At this point, do you feel like everything is starting to get hopeless? It seems that a lot of these countries are facing the same causes of pollution, yet no real change is happening. It’d be great to know what you think!

Fortunately, the Global Alliance on Health and Pollution published a report to provide a concrete action plan to manage the harms of pollution in Madagascar. Unfortunately, they do not take into consideration the consequences pollution brings to wildlife. I don’t know about you, but when I think of Madagascar, I immediately think of the 2 movies produced by Dreamworks Animation. Yet, why is the world not worried about the animals of Madagascar? This article explores how pollution harms birds. It’s a pity that this once-oasis has now become a living hell for birds. My next post this week will look into some interesting papers done by researchers studying various aspects of pollution.

See you in the next one! ✿

References

Dasgupta, S., Martin, P., Samad, H. A. (2013) Addressing Household Air Pollution: A Case Study in Rural Madagascar. 13 November. World Bank Policy Research Working Papers. Available from: https://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/abs/10.1596/1813-9450-6627 [Accessed: 1 March 2022].

Duke University (n. d.) Cookstoves and Air Pollution in Madagascar: Finding Winning Solutions for Human Health and Biodiversity (2016-2017). Available from: https://bassconnections.duke.edu/project-teams/cookstoves-and-air-pollution-madagascar-finding-winning-solutions-human-health-and [Accessed: 1 March 2022].

Environment Care (2019) Overcoming Madagascar’s number one killer: Pollution. 6 August. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4abE7pEr6k&feature=emb_imp_woyt [Accessed: 1 March 2022].

GAHP (n. d.) Madagascar Health and Pollution Action Plan Accelerating the Implementation of Actions to Reduce Pollution-Related Illness. Available from: http://gahp.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Madagascar-HPAP_EN.pdf [Accessed: 1 March 2022].

IQAir (2022) Air Quality in Madagascar. 1 March. Available from: https://www.iqair.com/madagascar [Accessed: 1 March 2022].

Rasolofomboahangy, V. (2020) In Madagascar’s Capital, Pollution Threatens an Oasis for Birds. 2 July. Available from: https://news.mongabay.com/2020/07/in-madagascars-capital-pollution-threatens-an-oasis-for-birds/ [Accessed: 1 March 2022].

Solve Pollution Network (2021) Overcoming Madagascar’s Number One Killer: Pollution. 1 April. Available from: https://solutions.leverforchange.org/100-change-2020/overcoming-madagascars-number-one-killer-pollution/ [Accessed: 1 March 2022].

UNICEF (2019) Combatting Pollution and its Effects on the Health of Children in Madagascar. 10 July. Available from: https://www.unicef.org/madagascar/en/press-releases/combatting-pollution-and-its-effects-health-children-madagascar [Accessed: 1 March 2022].

Hi everyone! This is another unplanned post that I figured I could talk about. As I was scrolling through my Instagram as part of my rest time, I chanced upon a post by the NY Times. It talks about plastic pollution in Senegal, a country from the Global South, and I thought I could summarize it on my blog today, and find a useful video to grab your attention on the issue.

Dakar, Senegal’s capital, holds annual marathons for people to race. This year, one man, Modou Fall, participated and wore a cape that was made out of plastic bags. He also wore a hat that was constructed out of plastic sunglasses that he found. The marathon is held every year, and hence, it attracts large crowds and wide media coverage. Hence, Modou felt that he could not miss the chance to share his concern about plastic pollution in his homeland.

During the race, he announced through his loudspeaker “I like my country, I say no to plastic bags”, gaining some fans who asked for selfies during the race. He took every opportunity he had to share with the attendees on the environmental issues haunting Senegal. He took part in the race not to run, but to collect the empty water bottles and plastic bags left behind by different groups of runners that left the starting line. Now, Modou is known as the Plastic Man.

Modou Fall sees himself as an educator, defender, and protector of the environment. Senegal is one of the top countries polluting the world’s oceans with plastic. In 2020, the Senegalese government attempted to ban plastic production, but it has a hard time enforcing this measure.

The image above is taken from the article, showing the scene in Bargny, a coastal town in Senegal, infested with plastic pollution.

Modou sought to change his country, because he has witnessed plastic pollution for far too long. According to him, he has witnessed the damaging effects of pollution since 1998, during his military service, when he saw cows in herding communities fall sick after consuming fragments of plastic bags in the arid landscape. He tried to start off by encouraging shopkeepers he knew to stop using excessive amounts of plastic, and if they could not, they should at least try to dispose of these plastics properly. Nobody listened.

He tried to take matters to his own hands by clearing the plastic produced by these shopkeepers. Although it took him 13 days, the plastic waste came back anyway. Luckily, his efforts managed to convince some shopkeepers to change their ways. But this is not enough.

Not many people in the Global South are convinced that they can do anything. If activists like Modou do not feel encouraged or supported to fight plastic pollution, then no one will. Hence, with the support he gained during the marathon, many are following his footsteps.

What do you think? Do you think activists like these can sustain their efforts in the long run?

I found this video that you can enjoy. You can see Modou yourself!

In this next video, you can see other activists in Senegal doing something to fight plastic pollution.

That’s it for today. Up next, my usual posts. See you in the next one! ✿

References

AFP News Agency (2019) Senegal: Dakar Divers Fight to Clear Plastic Tide. 5 October. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Kw4fq5bQj8 [Accessed: 14 February 2022].

Camara, M. & Maclean, R. (2022) This ‘Plastic Man’ Has a Cape and a Superhero’s Mission: Cleaning Up Senegal. 20 January. NY Times. Available from: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/20/world/africa/modou-fall-senegal.html [Accessed: 1 February 2022].

TRT World (2019) Plastic Pollution: Senegal Activists Lead Clean-Up. 13 August. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiYlNtmzeiA [Accessed: 14 February 2022].