A wealthy person’s home intact behind a poor person’s hurricane damaged house Is climate change the greatest threat to tackling poverty?

Rita’s story “I was just married when I saw the last zebras, giraffes and lions. The children have never seen them. The big men came and took all the trees, even though they belonged to us. Then the land started flooding and washed away the good soil. This old lady here says there weren’t any floods in her childhood. And now we have droughts coming more and more [frequently]. Diseases that hit our children that we’d never seen before – trouble with their eyes, and with the breathing. One by one the insects started disappearing. It was when we saw the bees lying on the ground desperate for water that we really worried”

Giodone’s story “We used to know when it would rain, but now we don’t. We don’t know when to plant our crops. We asked the government and the NGOs for help, but they didn’t know what to do. We went back to the old ways. We learned from the very old men and women how to feed ourselves from the beginning.”

Albutou’s story “When I was a young girl, my mother told me to prepare for the big drought. She said it comes when the young girls become women, and maybe once more only in their lifetime, so we have to save food to survive that year... We have had drought ever since I can remember. And these last 7 years have all been drought. We’ve lost our cattle, and our crops have all failed. This area used to have grass. Now it has all gone. Sometimes we survive on the roots and the thorny grass. We are so ashamed.”