El barro que nadie ve: desprendimientos de tierra en Tanzania

Y mientras tanto, los desprendimientos en Tanzania matan a veinte personas, aparece en tres párrafos en los medios internacionales, y la semana siguiente nadie se acuerda.

And meanwhile, the landslides in Tanzania kill twenty people, it appears in three paragraphs in the international press, and the following week nobody remembers.

Look, let's talk about the other factor, because I don't think we can understand this without it.

Deforestation.

Tanzania has lost, I want to say something like thirty percent of its forest cover since independence.

Does that number sound right to you?

Bueno, las cifras varían según la fuente y el método de medición, pero el orden de magnitud es correcto.

The figures vary depending on the source and measurement method, but the order of magnitude is right.

Tanzania pierde entre trescientas mil y cuatrocientas mil hectáreas de bosque al año, según estimaciones del gobierno tanzano.

Tanzania loses between three hundred thousand and four hundred thousand hectares of forest per year, according to Tanzanian government estimates.

Y las causas son las de siempre: agricultura de subsistencia, producción de carbón vegetal, que es el combustible principal de cocina para la mayoría de la población, y en algunas zonas, la expansión de plantaciones comerciales.

And the causes are the usual ones: subsistence farming, charcoal production, which is the main cooking fuel for the majority of the population, and in some areas, the expansion of commercial plantations.

And the connection to landslides is direct.

Tree roots hold the soil.

Take out the trees, the soil becomes loose material waiting for enough water to turn it into a river.

Es una física muy sencilla, sí.

It's very simple physics, yes.

Pero lo que hace que sea tan difícil de resolver es que la gente que tala los árboles para hacer carbón no tiene otra opción.

But what makes it so hard to solve is that the people cutting down trees to make charcoal have no other option.

No tienen gas natural.

They don't have natural gas.

No tienen electricidad confiable.

They don't have reliable electricity.

El carbón vegetal es lo que usan para cocinar, y llevan usando desde hace generaciones.

Charcoal is what they use to cook, and they've been using it for generations.

No puedes pedirle a alguien que deje de cocinar para salvar el suelo de otra persona en la ladera.

You can't ask someone to stop cooking in order to save someone else's hillside soil.

So you have this situation where poverty drives deforestation, deforestation amplifies climate disasters, and climate disasters push people deeper into poverty.

It's not a vicious cycle, it's a vicious spiral.

Each loop takes you lower.

Exactamente.

Exactly.

Y lo que destruye un desprendimiento no es solo las vidas que se pierden, aunque eso es lo más importante.

And what a landslide destroys is not only the lives lost, though that is the most important thing.

Es la cosecha enterrada bajo el barro.

It's the harvest buried under mud.

Son las semillas para la próxima temporada.

It's the seeds for the next season.

Es el único animal de tiro que tenía la familia.

It's the family's only draft animal.

La recuperación después de uno de estos eventos puede llevar años, y en ese tiempo, la familia ya ha tomado decisiones desesperadas que los dejan más vulnerables al siguiente desastre.

Recovery after one of these events can take years, and in that time, the family has already made desperate decisions that leave them more vulnerable to the next disaster.

What does Tanzania's government actually have in terms of disaster response capacity?

I mean, this is not a rich country.

Their GDP per capita is something like a thousand, twelve hundred dollars.

Mira, Tanzania tiene el Tanzania Disaster Relief Committee, que existe desde los años ochenta, y en los últimos años ha habido mejoras reales en la coordinación con organizaciones como la Cruz Roja y agencias de la ONU.

Tanzania has the Tanzania Disaster Relief Committee, which has existed since the eighties, and in recent years there have been real improvements in coordination with organizations like the Red Cross and UN agencies.

Pero la capacidad de respuesta rápida en zonas rurales remotas sigue siendo muy limitada.

But rapid response capacity in remote rural areas remains very limited.

Las carreteras en la región de Mbeya, especialmente en temporada de lluvias, pueden quedar intransitables durante días.

Roads in the Mbeya Region, especially during rainy season, can become impassable for days.

Cuando eso pasa, los equipos de rescate llegan tarde.

When that happens, rescue teams arrive late.

Y en los desprendimientos, cada hora cuenta.

And in landslides, every hour counts.

I keep thinking about early warning systems.

Because one of the things I noticed covering disasters for years is that the deaths are rarely from the disaster itself, they're from the lack of warning.

If you know it's coming, most people can get out.

A ver, aquí hay un progreso real pero insuficiente.

There is real but insufficient progress here.

La Autoridad Meteorológica de Tanzania ha mejorado sus capacidades de predicción notablemente, tienen colaboración con el Centro Climático Regional de África Oriental.

The Tanzania Meteorological Authority has improved its forecasting capabilities notably, with collaboration from the East African Regional Climate Centre.

Pero la última milla del sistema, que es llevar esa advertencia a una aldea sin electricidad, sin internet, sin teléfonos inteligentes, sigue siendo el talón de Aquiles.

But the last mile of the system, which is getting that warning to a village without electricity, without internet, without smartphones, remains the Achilles heel.

Hay proyectos de alerta por radio comunitaria que funcionan bien donde se implementan, pero no tienen la cobertura que necesitarían.

There are community radio alert projects that work well where they are implemented, but they don't have the coverage they would need.

The extraordinary thing is that the technology to do this properly exists, and it's cheap.

SMS alert systems, community radio.

We're not talking about expensive infrastructure.

We're talking about political will and funding priorities.

Es que eso me lleva a algo que me parece fundamental.

That brings me to something I find fundamental.

Hay un abismo entre los países que producen la mayor parte de las emisiones históricas de carbono y los países que están pagando el coste de esas emisiones.

There is an abyss between the countries that have produced most of the historical carbon emissions and the countries that are paying the cost of those emissions.

Tanzania ha emitido una fracción minúscula del CO2 que ha calentado el Océano Índico y está haciendo que estas lluvias sean más violentas.

Tanzania has emitted a minuscule fraction of the CO2 that has warmed the Indian Ocean and is making these rains more violent.

Pero son los tanzanos los que mueren bajo el barro.

But it is Tanzanians who die under the mud.

Climate justice.

And I want to be honest that this phrase gets thrown around a lot and sometimes loses its meaning.

But the numbers here are stark.

The United States, Europe, China together are responsible for the overwhelming majority of cumulative greenhouse gas emissions.

Sub-Saharan Africa, including Tanzania, is responsible for maybe three or four percent.

And yet.

Y sin embargo.

And yet.

Bueno, en las cumbres del clima se habla del «fondo de pérdidas y daños» que se creó en la COP28 de Dubái en 2023, que fue presentado como un gran avance histórico.

At climate summits they talk about the 'loss and damage fund' created at COP28 in Dubai in 2023, which was presented as a great historic breakthrough.

La cantidad inicial comprometida fue de setecientos millones de dólares.

The initial amount committed was seven hundred million dollars.

Setecientos millones para compensar décadas de daños climáticos a los países más vulnerables del mundo.

Seven hundred million to compensate for decades of climate damage to the world's most vulnerable countries.

Por comparación, Estados Unidos gasta más que eso cada tres días en su presupuesto de defensa.

By comparison, the United States spends more than that every three days on its defense budget.

No, you're absolutely right about that.

And I think the gap between the rhetoric and the reality is something that erodes trust in international institutions in ways that are very hard to repair.

La verdad es que los líderes africanos llevan años diciendo exactamente eso en los foros internacionales.

African leaders have been saying exactly that in international forums for years.

William Ruto de Kenia lo dijo de forma muy directa en la Asamblea General de la ONU.

Kenya's William Ruto said it very directly at the UN General Assembly.

Samia Suluhu Hassan, que es la presidenta de Tanzania, lo ha planteado reiteradamente.

Samia Suluhu Hassan, Tanzania's president, has raised it repeatedly.

El problema es que cuando hablan, las cámaras del mundo ya se han dado la vuelta para cubrir otra cosa.

The problem is that when they speak, the world's cameras have already turned away to cover something else.

Which is this week in microcosm.

The cameras are on the Strait of Hormuz.

And I understand why, I'm not making a moral judgment, oil prices affect everyone immediately.

But the cumulative effect of ignoring these smaller disasters is that we never build up the understanding we need to actually address the underlying problem.

Mira, eso me recuerda algo.

That reminds me of something.

Hay un estudio de la Universidad de Oxford que analizó la cobertura mediática de desastres climáticos entre 2000 y 2020.

There is a study from the University of Oxford that analyzed media coverage of climate disasters between 2000 and 2020.

La correlación entre el número de muertos y la cantidad de cobertura mediática era muy débil.

The correlation between the number of deaths and the amount of media coverage was very weak.

Lo que predecía la cobertura era, básicamente, la riqueza del país afectado y si había ciudadanos occidentales entre las víctimas.

What predicted coverage was, basically, the wealth of the affected country and whether there were Western citizens among the victims.

Veinte muertos en Tanzania no activa esos criterios.

Twenty dead in Tanzania does not trigger those criteria.

I spent fifteen years as a foreign correspondent and I can tell you that's not how editors frame it, but that's absolutely how it functions.

There's a brutal calculus operating in every newsroom, and it has nothing to do with scale of suffering.

No, no, espera, que quiero precisar algo aquí porque no quiero que parezca que estoy culpando solo a los medios.

Wait, I want to clarify something here because I don't want it to seem like I'm only blaming the media.

Los medios reflejan lo que los lectores consumen.

The media reflects what readers consume.

Y los lectores consumen lo que les resulta emocionalmente accesible.

And readers consume what is emotionally accessible to them.

Una tragedia en un lugar que no puedes ubicar en el mapa, protagonizada por personas que no se parecen a ti, es cognitivamente más difícil de procesar que una explosión en una ciudad que conoces.

A tragedy in a place you can't locate on a map, involving people who don't look like you, is cognitively harder to process than an explosion in a city you know.

Eso es psicología humana básica, no maldad.

That's basic human psychology, not malice.

Fair point.

Though I'd argue that's exactly what journalism is supposed to fight against, making the distant real, making the abstract human.

That's the job.

When we stop doing that, we become something else.

Totalmente de acuerdo.

Completely agree.

Bueno, sigamos con algo que me parece que todavía no hemos abordado directamente, que es la cuestión de la migración.

Let's get to something I think we haven't addressed directly yet, which is the question of migration.

Porque cuando hablamos de desprendimientos, de cosechas destruidas, de espirales de pobreza, estamos hablando también de la causa más profunda de los movimientos migratorios que están reconfigurando la política de tres continentes.

Because when we talk about landslides, destroyed harvests, poverty spirals, we're also talking about the deeper cause of the migratory movements that are reconfiguring the politics of three continents.

Right, so connect those dots for me.

Mbeya to the Mediterranean.

Walk me through it.

A ver.

Let's trace it.

Una familia pierde su cosecha en un desprendimiento.

A family loses its harvest in a landslide.

Al año siguiente, uno de los hijos jóvenes decide que no puede quedarse.

The following year, one of the young children decides they cannot stay.

Se va a Dar es Salaam primero, luego quizás a Nairobi.

They go to Dar es Salaam first, then perhaps to Nairobi.

Si encuentra trabajo, manda dinero a casa.

If they find work, they send money home.

Si no lo encuentra, sigue moviéndose.

If not, they keep moving.

Hay una ruta que atraviesa Etiopía, Sudán, Libia, y que termina en el mar.

There is a route through Ethiopia, Sudan, Libya, that ends at the sea.

Hay otra que cruza el Sahel.

There is another that crosses the Sahel.

Las dos son mortalmente peligrosas.

Both are mortally dangerous.

Pero cuando el punto de partida ya no tiene futuro, el riesgo del viaje se vuelve aceptable.

But when the starting point no longer has a future, the risk of the journey becomes acceptable.

And then those people arrive in Europe and the political conversation is about border security, deportation, the failure of integration.

And almost never about why they left in the first place.

Es que ese es el cortocircuito político que me parece más frustrante.

That is the political short-circuit I find most frustrating.

Los mismos partidos que rechazan los compromisos climáticos internacionales porque son «costosos» son los que luego gastan cantidades ingentes de dinero en vallas, guardacostas, centros de detención.

The same parties that reject international climate commitments because they are 'costly' are the ones that then spend enormous sums of money on fences, coast guards, detention centers.

Es una falsa economía.

It's a false economy.

Abordar las causas de la migración climática antes de que se produzca es infinitamente más barato y más humano que gestionar sus consecuencias.

Addressing the causes of climate migration before it occurs is infinitely cheaper and more humane than managing its consequences.

The World Bank published a report, I think it was updated in 2022, projecting that sub-Saharan Africa alone could see two hundred and sixteen million internal climate migrants by 2050.

Internal, meaning within their own countries.

That's before you even get to international movement.

Esas cifras son las que deberían estar en primera página todos los días.

Those are the figures that should be on the front page every day.

Porque doscientos dieciséis millones de personas en movimiento dentro del continente africano va a transformar la demografía de las ciudades, va a presionar los servicios públicos de países que ya están al límite, va a generar tensiones sociales que todavía no podemos predecir con precisión.

Because two hundred and sixteen million people in motion within the African continent will transform the demographics of cities, will pressure public services in countries already at their limit, will generate social tensions we still cannot predict with precision.

Y todo eso tiene sus raíces en parte en días como el de esta semana en Mbeya.

And all of that is rooted in part in days like this week's in Mbeya.

So what would actually help?

Not in some ideal world with unlimited funding.

What could actually be done, right now, with realistic resources?

Bueno, mira, hay tres cosas que los expertos señalan repetidamente.

There are three things experts point to repeatedly.

Primera: inversión en sistemas de alerta temprana a nivel comunitario, que son baratos y funcionan.

First: investment in community-level early warning systems, which are cheap and work.

Segunda: programas de reforestación que estén diseñados con las comunidades locales y que les den alternativas económicas al carbón vegetal.

Second: reforestation programs designed with local communities that give them economic alternatives to charcoal.

No imponer árboles desde arriba, sino crear condiciones para que la gente quiera cuidar el bosque porque le beneficia directamente.

Not imposing trees from above, but creating conditions so that people want to care for the forest because it directly benefits them.

And the third?

La tercera es la más difícil políticamente: honrar los compromisos del fondo de pérdidas y daños con financiación real y predecible, no con promesas que se diluyen en cada cambio de gobierno.

The third is politically the hardest: honoring the commitments of the loss and damage fund with real, predictable financing, not with promises that dissolve with each change of government.

Porque los países vulnerables necesitan poder planificar a largo plazo.

Because vulnerable countries need to be able to plan long term.

No pueden construir resiliencia climática sobre la incertidumbre de si el dinero prometido va a llegar o no.

They cannot build climate resilience on the uncertainty of whether promised money will arrive or not.

I mean, none of that is technically complicated.

It's not a puzzle waiting for a scientific breakthrough.

We know what needs to be done.

The thing that's missing is attention.

Sustained political attention.

And right now, with a war in Iran, attention is an incredibly scarce resource.

Y eso es lo que hace que este tipo de episodios tenga un valor que va más allá del aprendizaje del idioma.

And that is what gives this kind of episode a value that goes beyond language learning.

Porque si consiguiéramos que aunque sea una pequeña parte de la gente que nos escucha buscara en el mapa dónde está Mbeya, leyera sobre la crisis climática en el este de África, o simplemente recordara que esta semana murieron veinte personas bajo el barro mientras el mundo miraba hacia el Estrecho de Ormuz, eso ya sería algo.

Because if we could get even a small part of the people listening to us to look up on a map where Mbeya is, to read about the climate crisis in East Africa, or simply to remember that this week twenty people died under mud while the world looked toward the Strait of Hormuz, that would already be something.

Twenty people.

We keep coming back to that number.

And I think it's worth sitting with it for a second.

Because in the logic of news cycles, twenty is small.

In the logic of those twenty families, it's everything.

La verdad es que el cambio climático no va a llegar como una película de catástrofes con un gran momento dramático que despierte a la humanidad.

Climate change is not going to arrive like a disaster movie with one big dramatic moment that wakes humanity up.

Ya está llegando.

It is already arriving.

Está llegando en veinte muertos aquí, treinta allá, cosechas perdidas, pozos secos, aldeas abandonadas.

It is arriving in twenty dead here, thirty there, lost harvests, dry wells, abandoned villages.

Es una acumulación silenciosa de tragedias que individualmente no alcanzan el umbral de visibilidad mediática pero que en conjunto están redibujando el mapa humano del planeta.

It is a silent accumulation of tragedies that individually don't reach the threshold of media visibility but that together are redrawing the human map of the planet.

A silent accumulation of tragedies.

That's the line right there.

That's actually the story.

Bueno, Fletcher, hemos hablado de geología, de política climática, de migración, de psicología de los medios.

Fletcher, we've talked about geology, climate policy, migration, media psychology.

Todo eso surgió de tres párrafos sobre unas lluvias en Tanzania.

All of that came from three paragraphs about some rain in Tanzania.

Así funciona el mundo.

That's how the world works.

Todo está conectado con todo, y los hilos más importantes son a menudo los menos visibles.

Everything is connected to everything, and the most important threads are often the least visible.

Which is, honestly, why I got into journalism in the first place.

And why I'm glad we do this show.

Mbeya deserved more than three paragraphs.

Thanks for listening, everyone.

Find us on Twilingua, and we'll see you next time.

Hasta la próxima.

Until next time.

Y buscad Mbeya en el mapa.

And look up Mbeya on the map.