Parts of Namibia’s exotic Skeleton Coast could be submerged by the end of the century and its rich marine life badly hit by global warming, a report by the Southern African country’s Environment and Tourism Ministry warns.
The 1 500km Namibian coastline — which hosts tourist hotspots because of its unspoilt beauty and wildlife — is dotted with ghostly shipwrecks, a testimony to the unforgiving Atlantic stretch that gives it its name.
A 130-page report, released last week for the United Nations’s Framework Convention on Climatic Change, paints a bleak picture on the impact of global warming on the coastline and on the Benguela current running alongside.
”The cold Benguela current will experience temperature rises due to global warming, thus negatively impacting on the fisheries industry,” it says.
”Over the last decade, a trend of warmer sea surface temperatures has been noted over the northern Benguela region,” the report says, noting that temperatures could rise between two and six degrees Celsius in Namibia by 2100.
”Marine biodiversity may also be impacted if there are shifts in the Benguela current system,” it adds.
Marine life off the coast relies heavily on the nutrient-rich upwellings of the cold Benguela current.
”Any changes in the frequency, timing or distribution of upwelling would influence production,” according to the report.
The sea level will have risen between 30cm and 100cm in the next 96 years, the report says, ”certainly inundating significant parts of Walvis Bay, Namibia’s main port. The coastal towns of Swakopmund and Henties Bay are also vulnerable.”
According to marine scientist Jean-Paul Roux, the periodic warming of the Benguela System, called the Benguela Niño events, has increased.
”During the 1995 Benguela Niño event, unusual mortalities of sardine, horse mackerel were noted … the Namibian stock of Cape anchovy virtually disappeared while then sardine stock was reduced to its lowest level on record following this event”, Roux wrote in a recent publication titled Namibia’s Marine Environment.
Fishing and fish processing are among the former German colony’s major export earners, contributing to 10% of the gross domestic product.
Joe McGann, climate change coordinator in Namibia’s Environment and Tourism Ministry, said that ”even without the threat of climate change, Namibia faces absolute water scarcity by the year 2020”.
”Namibia is highly dependent on its natural resources such as fish, minerals, agricultural land and wildlife”, McGann added. ”The variable rainfall, frequent droughts and reliance on subsistence agriculture combine to make Namibia highly vulnerable to climate change.”
The Benguela current, which runs along the west coast of Southern Africa, brings cold water from the South Pole. The current greatly reduces the amount of rainfall that falls along coastal areas, resulting in semi-arid and desert vegetation in the western coastal plains.
Significant resources are required to pre-empt or adapt to potential negative climatic effects, said Deputy Environment and Tourism Minister Petrus Ilonga on Monday at the launch of the report.
”Climate change is not of our [Namibia’s] making and we cannot be expected to bear the costs of this global problem alone.” — Sapa-AFP