Climate Related Water Scarcity in the Seychelles

Today was a busy day at the Cancunmesse. We started off the day planning out which events we wanted to attend. There were many sessions that seemed exceedingly interesting, but we finally decided on 3 different sessions that the whole delegation wanted to attend. First, we went to a session on indigenous people in the Arctic and small island states with a focus on food and water security. Second, we went to a session informing us on indigenous views on REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation). Lastly, we attended a session titled “Where do we stand in terms of gender and women”. All of these sessions were very interesting but the one I want to focus on is the one about indigenous people in the Arctic and small island states.

During this session there were four speakers, but there was one we unanimously decided was our favorite speaker so far, Ambassador Ronny Jumeau. He is the the ambassador to the UN for the Seychelles. The Seychelles are a group of islands off the east coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean. The main focus of the ambassador's speech was the issue of water security. He noted that it was not normal for him to be doing a session with people speaking about the Arctic, but he said “the small island states have as much necessity to save the arctic as the people of the arctic do. If they go, we go too”. With that statement he proceeded to explain the issue of fresh water in the Seychelles today. There has been record low amounts of rain this year in the Seychelles, in fact on the third largest island there has been only one percent of the rain total they usually get this time of year. Only one percent! Something I found very interesting was how the Seychelles are a big tourism hub, and how that is related to the fresh water problem. Tourists use a lot of water, and there isn't enough water to spare as is. This has made the government ask the hotels to build there own desalination plants, which are very expensive and fickle pieces of machinery. This has raised the price for tourists to stay at the hotels. His speech related to the arctic, water, tourism, and what is happening today. The whole idea is much more complex than most people would imagine.

Overall, today was a very busy day. It was worth all the hustle and bustle to learn all this new information about the indigenous views of climate change and how it is affecting them. We are really getting a feel for the conference and will keep up the blogging on all our new ideas.