Here’s a sneak peek of my latest article for Aquila Magazine’s Earth Issue. It’s all about indigenous populations making the most of their ancient traditions to cope with an increasingly unpredictable climate. As well as highlighting the continued importance of ancient water tunnels (called aflaj) in Oman, I spoke to an expert on community adaption in Bangladesh about the floating gardens (called baira) which are providing a lifeline to flooded communities. There’s also a snippet on the amazing work of Hassan Fathy in Egypt…

Want to read more? Well all you have to do is download (how eco is that?!) a copy of the latest Aquila Magazine here. It’s only a couple of dollars for a mag jam-packed with goodness. Go on, you know you want to!

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• @FabulousSISTERS – Hymens, Hijabs and Helmets: Muslimahs Who Cycle (arwafreelance.com)

A study mapping the environmental actors in Palestine shows a desperate lack of co-operation between organisations and donors keen to play it safe with ‘practical projects’

The lovely people at Heinrich Böll Stiftung had done something that I have been procrastinating about for almost lifetime (well, not quite a lifetime but a good couple of years at least). They have mapped out the important actors and organisations on the environmental scene in Palestine. Exciting, right!? They have painstakingly gone through all those websites, NGOs and institutes with an environmental focus to bring us a clear image of the state of the environmental movement in Palestine. They found that out of 2,245 NGOs registered in the oPt only 104 were environmentally-focused and of these, just 56 were actually still active. More juicy details after the jump.

The Facts on Green Palestine

- 104 registered environmental civil society organisation in the West Bank and Gaza

- 56 civil society organisations are actually still active

- Over 70% of environmental civil society organisations feel that their relationship with other organisations is competitive rather than co-operative

- Limited funding and efforts to raise their grassroots presence are two main reasons for the competitiveness between organisations

- 8 key organisations in Palestine based on their size, the variety of programmes implemented and geographic range:

Most organisations complained that international donors attempted to remain neutral by focusing in practical action and lacked the political will to enforce real changes by addressing Palestinians’ rights to natural resources. As such many organisations felt their projects were simply ‘coping mechanisms’. Even so, the relationship between NGOs and funders was generally described as co-operative if highly dependent.

: For the full article and to find out the top 9 key green organisations in Palestine go to GreenProphet.com

: Palestine (Photo credit: Squirmelia)

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• Organic Farming Boom in Palestine (greenprophet.com)
• Without A Strong Civil Society, Middle East Environment Has No Chance (Op-Ed) (arwafreelance.com)

In 2010, after eight days of hiking in freezing temperatures Nawal Al-Hosany reached the Uhuru Peak of Kilimanjaro Mountain. She explains that she underwent the challenging climb to highlight the impact of climate change which is melting the mountain’s snow and to encourage greater action in the Middle East. Al-Hosany who joined Masdar in 2008 as the sustainability associate director is now its director of sustainability. She also director of the influential Zayed Future Energy Prize. I caught up with her to talk about Masdar and how you incentivise renewables in a rich, oil-producing country.

Here’s a snippet of the interview which you can read in full at GreenProphet.com.

GreenProphet: A recent report titled “Prospects for Energy Technology Advancements in the Energy Sector,” written by yourself and IRENA highlights the opportunities available to MENA if they embrace renewables. Why is now such a good time to adopt renewable technologies?

Nawal Al-Hosany: The MENA region, and especially the Gulf States, has an opportunity to leverage its expertise in energy and move into new sectors, including wind and solar power. The future energy mix will include renewables, and we should embrace this transition. In addition, the region also has an abundant solar resource – an energy we should tap into to address energy security and our rising demands. Although the region’s renewable resources have been underexploited, technology advances and increased deployment are now making certain forms of clean energy economically viable across the region.

Who are some of the women working in the environmental sector that inspire you?

The lack of women working in the environmental sector, and the opportunity to do more, is what ultimately inspires and motivates me. We only have a handful of women across the globe that are participating in the discussion on renewable energy, sustainability and addressing climate change. These are global issues that impact us all, irrespective of the roles we play or that have been defined [for us] by society.

Related articles

• Interview with Masdar’s Director of Sustainability – Dr. Nawal Al-Hosany (greenprophet.com)

When I first heard about the murder of Nancy Zaboun in Bethlehem on Monday, July 30, all I could think about was that another woman had been let down by the system. A weak and underfunded protection system, which fails to support Palestinian women dealing with domestic violence and abuse in the West Bank, makes women choose between living with their abuser and being trapped in a women’s shelter where there is limited education, freedom of movement, or prospects of a better future. And, as a woman of Palestinian heritage, Nancy Zaboun’s murder makes me angry. I am angry that more was not done to protect her from years of abuse and finally murder. I am angry that resources are so poor that women often choose to risk their lives rather than enter a shelter.

It also makes me ponder what my life would have been like if the Nakba* hadn’t expelled my family to the UK. What if I still lived in the West Bank and my friends, my sisters, had to deal with domestic abuse? What if they needed real protection? Would they have found the right places, the right people, and the right resources, or would they have had to pay the ultimate price like Nancy Zaboun?This anger and fear of the unknown makes me want to write about Nancy and to ask the authorities to do better – much better – because the services they provide now, in a place that could have been my home, are simply not good enough. I am lucky to have the privileges of speaking out, of writing, and of saying that the very least that must come from Nancy Zaboun’s murder is that we acknowledge that current facilities are failing women.

Nancy Zaboun, a mother of three, had been dealing with a violent and abusive husband for ten years before she was murdered. Her husband beat her on several occasions. Although she complained, she would return to him once he signed an agreement never to hit her again. There would always be another incident. A couple of months before her murder, Nancy fled to her family, seeking refuge. Her father insisted she leave and take her children with her. Without other options, she placed her three children in the care of a charity while she secured a divorce from her husband. After a divorce hearing, Nancy’s husband approached her in the market and stabbed her to death in broad daylight.

Following this incident of domestic violence – and another four across the Palestinian Territories – female activists marched through the streets of Bethlehem demanding justice for women. They wanted stricter laws to prevent domestic violence and more severe punishment for men who kill women. In Palestine, the law is not on the side of the victim when it comes to ‘honour killings.’ In cases where the murderer claims to be ‘safeguarding a family’s honour,’ prison sentences can be as short as six months. Women’s rights groups in the West Bank want this changed to life in prison.

• Image from the documentary ‘Hush.’ Photograph courtesy of the filmaker, Samar Hazboun. •

However, what the women’s groups and activists fail to highlight is that a change in the law alone will not solve this problem. The Palestinian Authority does not have a separate budget for nongovernmental organizations (NGO’s) such as women’s groups. Many groups rely on foreign funding to establish and run domestic violence shelters. Consequently, there are inadequate shelter facilities and limited financial support available to Palestinian women dealing with domestic abuse and violence. This lack of support and facilities often forces the women into unsafe situations.A 2009 study published by the Palestinian Women’s Information and Media Centre found that 67 percent of Palestinian women reported being subject to verbal violence on a regular basis. Seventy-one percent said they were subject to psychological violence, more than 50 percent said they had experienced physical violence, and 14.5 percent had suffered sexual violence.

Nancy Zaboun was under no illusions about the danger her husband posed. She simply did not have access to the facilities needed to keep her and her children safe. With financial and community support, she may have been able to escape her abusive husband. For years, however, Nancy’s financial situation meant she stayed with her husband and endured the beatings. As a young woman in the prime of her life, she may not have been able to imagine herself in a women’s shelter, dealing with the stigma and prejudice of being a ‘shelter girl.’ As a result, she decided to just protect her children and take her chances.

Samar Hazboun, a young photographer who spent three months in a women’s shelter in Palestine, documented the harsh nature of the institutions in a short documentary film called ‘Hush.’ In an interview for Muslimah Media Watch she told me, “It’s a tricky situation really because we do need women’s shelters, but we need a different approach to them. On one hand it’s a great thing because it offers protection to some of the women, but on the other hand the shelter does not have the proper means to provide the education, therapy and support these women need,” Hazboun explains. “The whole system needs to be looked into and radical changes implemented … I also think that the main problem lies not in the shelter but in the lack of support from the Palestinian authority.”

• Image from the documentary ‘Hush.’ Photograph courtesy of the filmaker, Samar Hazboun. •

‘Hush’ highlights the stories of women in the shelter and the circumstances which led them to seek refuge. It explores the isolating experience of living in a shelter, and the lack of resources which leaves many victims without sufficient psychological support to help them deal with abuse. The documentary gives Palestinians an insight into the reality of life in the shelters and the community.

“The women inside the shelter need to interact more with the outside world and the outside world needs to know that these women are equal human beings and not just ‘shelter girls’ or bad people,” Hazboun adds. “What struck me the most during the making of ‘Hush’ was the fact that people think that the women inside the shelter are prostitutes or have committed ‘disrespectful crimes.’ I heard a lot of rumours about the shelter and it made me sad to see how people make these women’s lives even harder than they already are.”

Palestinian women are discouraged from raising the issue of domestic violence publicly and are seldom granted a sympathetic ear when they do speak out. But the harsh reality of life in the shelters, due to underfunding and lack of government support, is also a part of that unforgiving discourse that says women are to blame and undeserving of help. While it is great to see women’s organisations taking a more public stance against domestic violence in the West Bank, the rarity of public outcry is disheartening.

What are organisations doing to remove the public stigma of seeking support and to pressure the government to improve the quality of services for abuse victims? What are women doing to challenge the public culture that casually accepts a husband’s right to beat his wife? Until now, not very much.

Obviously, Nancy Zaboun’s husband was the perpetrator in this case. He beat Nancy, and when she took the children away and asked for a divorce, he killed her. This, however, does not change the fact that the Palestinian government, with its underfunded and poorly supported women’s protection services, is also failing victims of domestic violence. The nonchalant and flippant attitude toward violence against women, as seen on TV and in reality, also needs to be tackled and changed. If Palestinian women living in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as well as those in the diaspora, want to be proud of their nation, then we need to not only ask for change, but to demand it.

According to a Palestinian human rights organisation, 29 women in the West Bank were killed by a relative between 2007 and 2010. In Jan. 2011, the Palestinian Authority passed a National Strategy to Combat Violence against Women 2011 to 2019. The strategic plan aims to end violence against women by “promoting the principle of the rule of law based on women’s rights and improving institutional mechanisms in Palestinian society in order to protect and support abused women to live in a society free from all forms of discrimination based on equality, dignity, and respect for human rights.”

*Nakba refers to the 1948 Palestinian exodus.

About the Author: Arwa Aburawa is a freelance journalist based in the UK with an interest in the environment, the Middle East, Islam and various social issues. Her work has been published at The Guardian, Al Jazeera, Make/Shift, Electronic Intifada, Muslimah Media Watch, SISTERS and The Majalla amongst many others. Arwa is also an editor at GreenProphet.com which is the leading news sites on environmental issues in the Middle East. She graduated in Modern History and Politics and later specialized in International Journalism. You can see more of her work at arwafreelance.com.

:: This article was originally published at TheWIP. 

One topic that has been given a recent boost by this desperate state of affairs is geo-engineering which is defined as ‘the deliberate manipulation of the planetary environment to counteract anthropogenic climate change’.[6] Indeed, a field experiment which consists of spraying sun-reflecting chemical particles from a balloon into the atmosphere over Fort Sumner in New Mexico to artificially cool the planet has just been given the all clear.[7]

However, embracing geo-engineering as ‘Plan B’ is not only dangerous as the outcomes of planetary-scale experiments are highly uncertain; it is undemocratic, irresponsible and ignores the fact that we have a perfectly good ‘Plan A’ – to cut our emissions. We just need better ways of convincing people to do that. One area that is commonly overlooked when exploring ways to encourage greater climate awareness and action is faith and religion. Islam, in particularly, which is perceived as the faith of oil-rich sheikhs is sidelined with sparse academic research highlighting the insights Islam has to offer an environmentally vulnerable planet.

The primary source of all Islamic thought and practice, the Holy Qur’an, is full of exhalation of nature, its beauty and the need to protect it. Nature is portrayed as God’s glory, a gift of sustenance and humanity is divinely ordained responsibilities to care for the natural world and keep the harmony and balance placed within it.[8] In the Qur’an there are “ample instructions as well as warnings to the faithful not to abuse their power in dealing with the environment. Distortion of the natural order and ill-treatment of God’s creatures, whatever they are, are considered as sins that lead to punishment.”[9] Wastefulness is discouraged and excessive consumption or greed is actively prohibited. Indeed, the Prophet Muhammed (pbuh) warned his followers to not waste precious resources such as water and encouraged them to protect land and improve its fertility.

With this in mind, it is not hard to make the link between Islamic ethics and the need to curb our excessive use of non-renewable resources such as fossil fuels which are poisoning the air and land.

As such, Islam has “the capability of helping to solve one of the greatest problems of our time, namely that of ‘the environment’. Islam need not be a hindrance, but could be a great help, in educating the faithful about good environmental conduct.”[10] Cairo, the Islamic capital with one thousand minarets, is one of the most polluted cities in the world and Bangladesh and the Maldives – which are both Muslim nations – will be the worst affected countries when climate change hits due to flooding and droughts.[11] Indeed, environmental problems plague many Muslims countries whether it be deforestation in Indonesia, desertification and over-development in the Middle East or drought in North Africa. These nations and many others have everything to gain by tackling climate change and environmental pollution by embracing the green ethics of Islam.

The Muslim faith commands influence (to varying degrees) of 18% of the world’s population and covers a very large area where some of the greatest environmental problems exist.[12] As such, highlighting the green tenants of the Islamic faith is hugely beneficial to tackling climate change and may become increasing useful with the predicted doubling of the Muslim population by 2030 to 26.4%.[13] If Muslims across the world garner greater awareness of their Islamic duties to the environment, it also perceivable that they would be able to pressure their governments into making the right ‘green’ decisions when it comes to water, food, recycling and energy use. It would also mean that rich Gulf Muslim nations such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain wouldn’t be as obstructive at important climate summits if their populations could rally for the environment based on Islamic tenants.[14]

As well as opening up opportunities for Muslims and Muslim nations to deal with climate change, Islamic research into the area is also producing more spiritual conclusions. This includes the belief that the current environmental crisis is an outward reflection of an inward and spiritual crisis of modern day humanity. As Murad (2011) notes: “The solution to the environmental crisis does not lie in the use of environmental engineering alone. Even if humanity successfully reduced its carbon footprint through various kinds of eco-friendly technology, such a crisis shall continue until the environment is given back its sacredness in the eyes of the abuser. Such a feat is only possible through humanity’s making peace with its surroundings, inner peace and most importantly God.”[15]

Murad explains that due to the divorce of science from faith, the natural environment lost its sacredness. It lost its symbolic significance as a sign of god and creation and simply became regarded as physical properties available for exploitation and consumption. “The practical significance of this is that a tree today can be used for the production of paper, pancake syrup, and other consumer goods, but it is generally no longer a studied entity of harmonious purity—let alone an instrument of enlightenment and transcendence.”[16] Modern science failed to provide nature with anything other than physical features and properties and so devoid of any sacredness, they were open to mass exploitation and mistreatment.

Muslims and Muslim nations need to reclaim the sacredness of nature and use it to build links to the wider environmental movement whilst also taking their Islamic duties to the environment more seriously. What is more, given the theological correspondences to Western religions and its esoteric similarities to Eastern religions, Islam should be making the most of its “capacity to provide a universal basis that can benefit other religions in their own approaches to the environmental crisis.”[17] Rather than lagging behind in awareness and action around climate change, Islamic nations should be leading the way. Not only would this help protect their vulnerable nations from their worst impacts of climate change, it would also help them fulfil their Islamic duties as stewards of nature.

—

Arwa Aburawa is a UK-based freelance journalist who writes regularly on climate change and the Middle East. She is an editor atGreenProphet.com, which is the leading news site on environmental issues in the Middle East, and has a regular green column at SISTERS magazine.

Women and Climate Change originally appeared at Aquila Style April 2012