09.03.08
Benin: rising sea levels
RG mail
COTONOU, 2 September 2008
(IRIN) – Rising sea levels have destroyed hundreds of homes, hotels, roads
and harvests, and threaten to engulf large areas of Cotonou, Benin’s
capital.
A government-commissioned study about a year ago recommended urgent action
to hold back the rising tides, and save the city’s ports, airport, and
coastal communities, but political infighting has blocked funding.
Residents of the city, with a population of about three million people, say
little has changed – except the advancing sea.
Accountant Finagnon Dossa said storms in March 2007 caused over US$3,000 of
damage to his property, 500 metres from the coast in the east Cotonou
district of Donaten.
His retired fisherman neighbour, Jacques, has lived by the sea for 20 years:
“There is only one explanation. It is coastal erosion. It is a problem all
over the world. We want to leave,” he said.
However, both Jacques and Dossa said they did not have the money to find
other lodgings inland.
Vacation homes and government buildings dot Benin’s 125-km coastline, but
most of the 100,000 people in east Cotonou – the most vulnerable to sea
damage from coastal erosion – can ill-afford the advancing sea.
Coastal erosion in the Gulf of Guinea, including Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo,
Benin and Nigeria, has been linked to climate change, and in turn to rising
sea levels, flooding, and waterborne diseases. (For a recent IRIN report on
the disappearance of West Africa’s coastline, click here)
Threat to industry, tourism, fishing
Benin’s Urban Planning Ministry estimates the sea may rise by up to 59m, in
a worst- case scenario, by the year 2100.
A 2007 study by the UK-based non-profit International Institute for
Environment and Economic Development (IIED) found coastal erosion could wipe
out Benin’s eastern districts of Donaten, Tokplegbe, Finagnon,
Akpakpa-Dodomey and JAK, if nothing is done to stop the sea’s advance.
IIED mapped out roads, drainage, pavement and coconut plantations that have
begun to disappear. Researchers said coastal erosion could kill off Benin’s
industrial, fishing and tourism sectors, and wipe out buildings, ports, and
the airport, as well as other infrastructural facilities.
Pumping of sand banned
Cotonou, which sits on alluvial sand at most four metres deep, drives most
of Benin’s economy, in addition to being a regional trade hub. Its port
brings in most of the country’s customs revenue, and its Danktopa market
earns over US$750 million annually, according to the IIED.
Until recently, it was legal for companies in Benin to pump sand from the
beach for construction projects, further shrinking the coast.
The government banned this practice in September 2007, but locals say they
still see companies hauling away sand.
Gilbert Medje, president of the Benin non-profit organisation, Front United
Against Coastal Erosion, said the city could not spare the sand, or the
time.
From his upstairs apartment in Akpakpa District, he looks out anxiously at
the sea. He said his home used to be 141 metres from the ocean but over the
past five years the sea had closed in by 30 metres.
Threat not only to Benin
Remote sensing and maps of eastern Cotonou, 1963-2000, show the shoreline
has receded over 400 metres in the area east of the port of Cotonou
According to Medje’s organisation, coastal erosion has in recent years wiped
out 460 fields, destroyed 47 homes, and threatens over 1,000 properties in
Cotonou.
Benin’s former minister of finance, Stanislas Pognon, told IRIN Cotonou is
important not only for Benin, but also for West Africa. “The new
international Cotonou-Provo [Nigeria] highway is at risk [of being damaged
by coastal erosion]. That is an important regional link that would affect
our relations with Nigeria. According to experts [including French firm
SOGREAH-Laboratoire DEFT], Akpakpa could be wiped off the map by 2025, and
other neighbourhoods cut off from the rest of Benin. This would be
detrimental to the fertile Oueme valley.”
With rising global food prices, government officials are counting on Oueme
valley, central Benin, to supply more food for the cash-strapped country.
According to Pognon, coastal erosion would wipe out roads, making
communications with this major local food source more difficult.
Millions in aid blocked
Environmental researchers with the Netherlands-based Royal Haskonning firm
recommended last September that the government build groynes (large barriers
perpendicular to the sea to prevent sand from shifting), invest more in
coastal development, forbid sand pumping, and resettle at-risk coastal
communities.
Donors, including the Islamic Development Bank and Organization of the
Petroleum Exporting Countries, have pledged over US$70 million to build rock
barriers, starting with a 7km stretch along the high-risk eastern Cotonou
shoreline.
But Benin political infighting has stalled construction. Some lawmakers were
withholding their approval until their earlier demands for municipal
electoral reforms were met. President Boni Yayi broke the impasse in July
with a presidential decree, but construction has not yet begun.
Even if the groynes are built, the IIED has said this will only push the
erosion problem further east to Nigeria. The UN Environmental Programme has
called for a regional groyne covering the entire Gulf of Guinea coastline.
For Benin fisherman Kofi Ayao, the problem is closer to home: “The sea was
far from us two years ago. But now, here it is. We are scared. If we do not
find a solution soon, we may simply drown in our sleep one day.”
gc/pt/cb
Theme(s): (IRIN) Environment, (IRIN) Health & Nutrition, (IRIN) Natural
Disasters, (IRIN) Urban Risk, (IRIN) Water & Sanitation
[ENDS]
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