Luis Reyes, President, Junta de Agua, Honduras; Luis Fernando Zuniga, Honduras Well Maintenance Manager for Texas Water Mission; and Roxana Menes, long-time TWM volunteer and the author of this blog post (along with Linda Stone)
Learning about the perils of climate change on a global scale has become a daily occurrence through television, the internet, newspapers, and magazines. In the developed world, learning about the impact of climate change on human populations is a remote intellectual activity conducted in the comfort of people’s homes while drinking their morning coffee and watching TV before they head off to work. Climate change in the developed world is mainly a construct unless people have experienced the devastation of climate change firsthand by surviving disasters like hurricanes, wildfires, tornados, and floods, which have significantly increased in frequency and severity in the last decades.
During the most recent visit to Danlí, Honduras, a city located approximately 45 miles Northwest of Ocotal, Nicaragua, the closest border town between Nicaragua and Honduras, Texas Water Mission (TWM)’s Executive Director, Linda Stone, and long-time volunteer, Roxana Menes, bore witness to the phenomena of mass migrations making their way to “el Norte” from various Latin American and Caribbean countries. The reasons for this historic mass migration are various. They include political, economic, and security factors. But climate change is most likely the most impactful reason for the out-migration as longtime natural water sources dry up. Danli has become a vital waystation for international migrants, mainly from Venezuela and Haiti. International aid organizations like the Red Cross have set up offices in Danlí to manage this unprecedented crisis affecting the people of the Americas (South, Central, North America, and the Caribbean).
In Honduras, the internal migrant crisis is linked to lack of water resources. According to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), 60% to 70% of Honduran migrants making their way to the United States are from an area known as “el corridor seco” (the dry corridor). Honduran communities within the dry corridor are experiencing unprecedented precipitation patterns where storms and flooding alter natural watersheds leading to extreme droughts. Precipitation patterns have been changing due to global warming, so that the annual rainy season has less precipitation overall, punctuated by extreme storm systems where the water cannot be adequately absorbed due to quantity and intensity.
Since the 1960s, average annual temperature in Honduras has increased by 0.6°C per decade, with greatest warming in the dry season. Heavy rainfall events have also increased by 1.2% per decade. Although trends in annual rainfall have been inconsistent, Honduras has experienced reduced rainfall in the northwest and southeast. Additionally, the frequency and intensity of El Niño/La Niña events has increased.
Image credit: The Alliance for Climate Protection: How the Climate Crisis is Driving Central American Migration https://www.climaterealityproject.org/blog/how-climate-crisis-driving-central-american-migration
In addition, communities that have historically relied on using surface water are at the highest risk of losing their livelihoods in rural farming. Their ability to exist is becoming impossible due to an increasingly inhospitable environment lacking water resources. As early as August 2018, the Government of Honduras declared a state of emergency based on the drought precipitated by climate change, which has significantly affected roughly 327,000 people or 65,500 families in 74 municipalities in the dry corridor.
The historical climate changes experienced by Honduran farmers make TWM’s mission essential for supporting communities in need by providing safe drinking water and hygiene solutions that are invaluable during global climate change. TWM continues its commitment to drilling wells and improving the health of communities in Honduras.
Women at TWM’s Health & Hygiene workshop in Quebrada Grande
Sources:
Euro.esEuro. (2023). Learn how foreign migrants live as they pass through Honduras on their way to search for an immigration process in the U.S. https://euro.eseuro.com/world/821122.html
Interactive Country Fiches https://dicf.unepgrid.ch/honduras/climate-change
National Drought Mitigation Center. (2023). What is normal precipitation. https://drought.unl.edu/ranchplan/DroughtBasics/WeatherandDrought/WhatisNormalPrecipitation.aspx
Regional Environmental Change (2022) Putting climate-induced migration in context: the case of Honduran migration to the USA. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10113-022-01946-8
Texas Water Mission. (2023). Our Story. https://www.texaswatermission.org/our-story-1
Unicef. (2018). The use of the INFORM tool in drought response in Honduras. https://www.unicef.org/lac/en/historias/el-uso-de-la-herramienta-inform-en-la-respuesta-la-sequia-en-honduras
Gisel from CAFEUNO, Linda Stone, and Roxana Menes at the Tres Piedras Coffee Plantation in the mountains of Honduras
Coffee farmers are very vulnerable to climate change. Texas Water Mission supports small coffee farmers by purchasing coffee from the Honduran Coffee Alliance sold via Volunteer Coffee, our local roaster. You can support both the coffee farmers and communities needing wells by purchasing our brand Coffee Into Water. Twelve ounce and one pound bags available, ground or whole bean.
Articulo en Español: Observación del cambio climático en Honduras
Por Roxana Menes MPH, Voluntaria de Texas Water Mission (TWM) con comentario de Linda Stone, directora ejecutiva de TWM
Miembros de la comunidad de Las Acacias, Honduras, alrededor de un pozo seco cavado a mano. Han presentado una solicitud para un nuevo pozo a Texas Water Mission.
Aprender sobre los peligros del cambio climático a una escala global se ha convertido en una actividad cotidiana a través de la televisión, el internet, los periódicos, y las revistas. En el mundo desarrollado, aprender sobre el impacto del cambio climático en las poblaciones humanas es una actividad intelectual remota que se lleva a cabo en la comodidad de los hogares de las personas mientras toman su café matutino y ven la televisión antes de irse al trabajo.
El cambio climático en el mundo desarrollado es principalmente un constructo abstracto, a menos que la gente haya experimentado la devastación del cambio climático de primera mano sobreviviendo a desastres como huracanes, incendios forestales, tornados e inundaciones, que han aumentado significativamente en frecuencia y severidad en las últimas décadas.
Durante la visita más reciente a Danlí, Honduras, una ciudad ubicada aproximadamente a 45 millas al noroeste de Ocotal, Nicaragua, la ciudad fronteriza más cercana entre Nicaragua y Honduras, la directora ejecutiva de Texas Water Mission (TWM), Linda Stone, y la voluntaria de largo plazo, Roxana Menes, fueron testigos de los fenómenos de migraciones masivas que se dirigen a 'el Norte" desde varios países de América Latina y el Caribe.
Las razones de esta migración masiva histórica son varias. Incluyen factores políticos, económicos, y de seguridad. Pero el cambio climático es probablemente la razón más impactante para la migración a medida que se agotan las fuentes naturales de agua. Danlí se ha convertido en una estación vital para los migrantes internacionales, principalmente de Venezuela y Haití. Organizaciones internacionales de ayuda, como la Cruz Roja, han establecido oficinas en Danlí para manejar esta crisis sin precedentes que afecta a los pueblos de las Américas (América del Sur, América Central, América del Norte, y el Caribe).
En Honduras, la crisis migratoria interna está vinculada a la falta de recursos hídricos. Según la Agencia de Estados Unidos para el Desarrollo Internacional (USAID), el cambio climático se ha convertido en un importante motor de la migración hacia Estados Unidos desde una zona conocida como "el corredor seco". Las comunidades hondureñas dentro del corredor seco están experimentando patrones de precipitación sin precedente, donde las tormentas e inundaciones alteran las cuencas naturales que conducen a sequías extremas.
Los patrones de precipitación han cambiado (debido al calentamiento global) y ahora están salpicados por sistemas de tormentas extremas más frecuentes donde el agua no puede ser absorbida adecuadamente debido a lluvias más intensas en comparación con los niveles de lluvia "normales." El nivel normal de precipitación es el valor promedio de precipitación en 30 años.
Además, de perder sus medios de vida en la agricultura rural, comunidades que históricamente han dependido del uso de aguas superficiales corren el mayor riesgo. Su capacidad de existir se está volviendo imposible debido a un entorno cada vez más inhóspito y carente de recursos hídricos. En agosto de 2018, el Gobierno de Honduras decretó el estado de emergencia debido a la sequía precipitada por el cambio climático, que ha afectado significativamente a unas 327,000 personas o 65,500 familias en 74 municipios del corredor seco.
Los cambios climáticos históricos experimentados por los agricultores hondurenos hacen que la misión de TWM sea esencial para apoyar a las comunidades necesitadas proporcionando agua potable y soluciones de higiene que son invaluables durante el cambio climático global. TWM continúa su compromiso de perforar pozos y mejorar la salud de las comunidades en Honduras.
Referencias:
Euro.esEuro. (2023). Learn how foreign migrants live as they pass through Honduras on their way to search for an immigration process in the U.S. https://euro.eseuro.com/world/821122.html
National Drought Mitigation Center. (2023). What is normal precipitation. https://drought.unl.edu/ranchplan/DroughtBasics/WeatherandDrought/WhatisNormalPrecipitation.aspx
Reichman D. R. (2022). Putting climate-induced migration in context: The case of Honduran migration to the USA. Regional Environmental Change, 22(3), 91. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-022-01946-8
Texas Water Mission. (2023). Our Story. https://www.texaswatermission.org/our-story-1
USAID. (n.d.). USAID Honduras: Climate change, food security, and migration. https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PA00XXBJ.pdf
Unicef. (2018). The use of the INFORM tool in drought response in Honduras. https://www.unicef.org/lac/en/historias/el-uso-de-la-herramienta-inform-en-la-respuesta-la-sequia-en-honduras