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Celebrating International Day for Disaster Reduction in Bangladesh
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October 13th is International Day for Disaster Reduction. It all began in 1989, after a call by the United Nations General Assembly for a day to promote a global culture of risk-awareness and disaster reduction. Every year, the day celebrates people and communities around the world who are reducing their exposure to disasters and raising awareness about the importance of reining in the risks that they face. The 2017 edition continues as part of the "Sendai Seven" campaign, centered on the seven targets of the Sendai Framework. This year the focus is on Target B, of which the aim is to reduce the number of people affected by disasters by 2030.
 
Celebrating International Day for Disaster Reduction in Bangladesh, BEDS
 
Bangladesh Environment and Development Society (BEDS) is community based organization works for maintaining the balance between human and nature. Like all other organizations, BEDS community has also celebrated the day in the Sundarbans coastal region of Bangladesh at Satkhira district and Khulna district, where a big portion of the land was washed away by riverbank erosion very recently. 
 
“To reduce the number of people affected by disasters by 2030” is the slogan for this year. The aim of celebrating the day was to bring people’s voice to the global community. Sundarbans coastal communities face different natural disasters like cyclone, flood, riverbank erosion, tidal surges, over and unusual rainfall, draught etc. But the major problem is riverbank erosion and cyclone. 
 
Celebrating International Day for Disaster Reduction in Bangladesh, BEDS
 
At the beginning of the day’s activity, community discussed about their vulnerability of disaster. They also discussed about how communities can reduce their disaster risks as well as set their needs. Local community demonstrated their vulnerability, resources and needs through displaying placards and festoons. Activities of the day ended through a big rally. The community urged to the global community to realize their sufferings and help them to reduce their disaster risk.           
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Africa can Benefit from Nature-based Tourism in a Sustainable Manner
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Africa’s unique natural assets — its iconic wildlife, snow-capped mountains, waterfalls, rapids, majestic forests, unique bird populations, pristine beaches and coral reefs—represent tremendous value. Wonders of nature such as Mt Kilimanjaro, Mt Kenya, and the Victoria Falls, as well as Zanzibar’s Stone Town and its beautiful beaches, and the wildebeest migration between the Masai Mara and Serengeti, are some of the world’s best-known tourist attractions.
 
Indeed, tourism, primarily nature-based in East and Southern Africa, significantly contributes to GDP, jobs, and livelihoods. The World Travel and Tourism Council says that in 2016 the total contribution of travel and tourism was 7.8 percent of GDP and 6. percent of total employment, including its wider effects from investment, supply chain, and income.
 
In some countries, this contribution is significantly higher. In Namibia, 19 percent of all employment is directly or indirectly linked to tourism. In Tanzania, tourism is the largest foreign exchange earner, competing with gold. Importantly, the spillover effects of tourism throughout the economy can be significant. There is also a strong gender dimension: half of the world’s hotel and restaurant employees are women.
 
Tourism has been growing faster in emerging and developing regions than in the rest of the world, especially in countries proactively supporting tourism, according to the UN’s World Tourism Organization. Africa is at the forefront of this trend, with the role and value of nature-based tourism likely to increase even more than the global average because of the scarcity of unique wildlife and natural assets.
 
Nowhere else in the world can tourists experience the same thrill of encounter with wild animals. They can go gorilla trekking in Rwanda, walk with cheetahs in Zambia, observe lions resting in trees in Uganda, or lounge on the pristine beaches of Mozambique’s Maputo Special Reserve while watching wildlife. For this experience, tourists have been willing to pay a premium, and some African countries have been able to corner a high paying niche of the tourism market.  
 
What is needed for Africa to use its huge potential for capitalizing on its natural assets in a sustainable manner?
 
First and foremost, this requires strong protection and the sustainable management of these assets. Threats such as the rampant poaching of wildlife, the clearcutting of forests, and the pollution of beaches should not only be a concern for environmentalists, but for ministers of finance, planning, and tourism. They should also worry the private sector and local communities, as this sort of damage can deprive them of opportunity. Understanding the value of natural assets and the potential revenues they can generate can help mobilize broad support for protection and conservation efforts.
 
Investing in protecting a country’s natural assets is equally important for the local and global good.
 

Role in Protecting Biodiversity

 
The World Bank has been protecting biodiversity for decades, in the past ten years through a portfolio of projects worth US$2bn globally, leveraging additional resources. But an urgent response is needed to help people protect against large-scale poaching and illegal wildlife trade.
 
Many countries have introduced anti-poaching programs and stepped up efforts to curb international networks dealing in the illegal trade of wildlife products, particularly ivory and rhino horn. The World Bank-led, Global Environment Facility-supported, and partnerships such as the International Consortium on Combatting Wildlife Crime, have brought together CITES, UNODC, the Interpol, and the World Customs Organization to help.
 
Devising sustainable tourism strategies, targets, and plans also helps. Policymakers need to understand that increasing the number of tourists is not always the best target. Other considerations are important, too, such as an ecosystems’ carrying capacity and the need to maintain a unique tourist experience; these attract low impact, high value tourism, especially in areas with unique assets. Revenue per tourist rather than the number of tourists should be used as the benchmark for success. The country’s image should be built, promoted and linked to this vision.
 
The local economy and local communities need to share the benefits from tourism. There are many opportunities for this, including sourcing supplies and labor, which can be supported by targeted training and capacity building to increase local value addition. My visit to a Bank-supported small training facility in Botswana, one where youth are trained in tourism, showed an uplifting example of what can be done with limited resources. More systematic vocational training can do much more.
 
Local conservancies have also evolved in countries from Namibia to Kenya to provide sustainable models of community involvement in conservation and tourism. Beyond this, tourism revenue needs to be managed in a transparent and equitable manner to generate broad, local support.      
 
The regulatory environment for businesses to start up and operate needs to be simple and accommodating. Overly comprehensive regulations too often inhibit and discriminate against local business development. Policy reforms can improve the business climate and allow local businesses to thrive.   
 
Investment in services (health, finance, hospitality, safety, and visas) and infrastructure (transport, accommodation, safe water and sanitation) are the basic foundations for attracting tourists. The role of public-private partnerships also needs to be strengthened to ensure that scarce public resources are used for the highest priority public goods, as well as to help leverage private investment.
 
Nature-based tourism can offer a bright future for Africa. A step in this direction is the US$150m Tanzania Resilient Natural Resource Management for Tourism and Growth Project, the largest nature-based tourism project in the Bank’s portfolio, to be approved by the Board on, September 28, 2017.
 
Banner and thumbnail photo credits to Magda Lovei/World Bank
 
You can also read Magda Lovei's blog post on the World Bank Group website.
#Uniting4Climate: Uniting for Climate Action at COP23
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Winds of change
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The photo essay on the following pages turns its focus on wind energy and reflects on its enormous power for helping us keep the planet fit and healthy for coming generations.

When the sun set on Friday, January 20, the world had changed. Its most powerful person was now a man who does not believe that climate change is caused by human activity and has publicly stated that global warming is a hoax. Climate researchers and campaigners ended the day in shock and as darkness fell, further development of renewable energy, wind power included, felt nowhere near as secure as it had been.

The photo essay on the following pages turns its focus on wind energy and reflects on its enormous power for helping us keep the planet fit and healthy for coming generations.

Winds of Change - Connect4Climate Partner Foresight

 

Plastic Bag

Winds of Change - Connect4Climate Partner Foresight

Lifted effortlessly into the air, a plastic bag swirls above a basketball court in central Copenhagen. The wind energy keeping it aloft is roughly half to that used by an iPhone on standby.

Our plastic bag has a mass m 0.01kg and has a vertically projected area of

25cm25cm = 1/16m2

The gravitational force the wind must overcome to keep the bag in the air is

F = g*m = 9.82* 0.01     ≈0.1 [N]

We assume the bag is round and its drag coefficient Cd is about 0.5.

Apply the calculation for drag to find the wind speed (in metres per second) in a vertical direction needed to keep the plastic bag in the air

0.1 = ½*1*u^2*0.5*1/16

u = 2.5 m/s

The required updraft in the wind to keep the bag in the air is about 2.5 m/s.

In terms of energy that is equivalent to a power of

F*u = 0.1[N] * 2.5 [m/s] = 0.25 Watt.

An iPhone 6 on stand-by uses about 0.6 Watt

 

Tree

In the lull after Storm Urd, which raged over Denmark on December 26, 2016, twilight descends over a tree blown over by the high winds. Already its branches are becoming partially trapped in the still frozen waters of Utterslev Marsh. The energy in the wind which felled the tree could keep a Tesla S running for 42 hours at 100 kph.

Presuming that the surface area of the tree is similar to that of the rotor swept area A [m2]of a medium scale wind turbine, the tree would absorb energy [Watt] at a rate equal to:

P = Cp* ½ rho*U^3*A

0.5*0.5*1*20^3*20*20

= 1/4*20^5

800 kW

During the storm, the strongest gust was measured at 37.8 m/s (84.5 mph). Had the tree fallen in winds of 21 m/s while standing for one hour, the average energy absorbed would have equalled 1 MWh.

A Tesla S at one tenth of its maximum capacity of 236 kW (1000kW/23.6kW) would keep moving for 42 hours.

 

Flooding

The sun rises over a changed landscape. A tidal surge caused by the previous night’s storm leaves rows of small boats tied to invisible underwater jetties in Ise Fjord. Together with neighbouring Roskilde Fjord it makes up the largest fjord system on Denmark’s main island of Zealand. The force of the storm, equivalent to about fourteen hours energy consumption in the city of Aarhus, raised the fjord’s water level to 1.59 metres above normal.

Ise Fjord is nearly 50 kilometres long and has a total area of about 450 square kilometres.

E= m g H [Joule] Pr m2: 100 dm * 15.9 dm *1*9.82 m/s^2*1.59 m = 24,826 Joule/m2

450 km2 = 450 e6 m2

E pot =11.2 TJ = 11.2 e3 G Joule

A Dane uses just 6,122 kWh a year. With a year made up of 8760 hours, that is just under 1 kW of power per citizen

6122 kWh/8760 hours = 700 Watt

Denmark’s second largest city, Aarhus, with a population of nearly 320,000 therefore uses on average 700 W *319 680 people = 223 MW. One hour’s consumption of electricity in Aarhus corresponds to

223 MW * 3600 [s] = 0.806 TJ

The energy behind the rise of the water level in Ise Fjord could keep Aarhus supplied with energy for

11.2 TJ/0.806 TJ = 14 hours

 

Calculations by Torben Krogh Mikkelsen

Connect4Climate is a World Bank Group Multi-Donor Trust Fund powered by Italy’s Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security and Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development that drives climate action through advocacy, partnerships, and creative communications.

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