Country Profile of Comoros
Capital City:
Moroni
Geographic coordinates:
11° 20' and 11° 04' S and
longitudes 43° 04' and 45° 19'E.
Area:
On a worldwide scale, the Comoros
belong to the 20 islands or archipelagoes characterized
by their endemic diversity (Caldecott and Al,
1960). The country counts a great diversity of
plants and an important endemism which make of
it a highly priority place of intervention for
the conservation of the world biodiversity (WWF
and UICN 1995).
Population:
711,417 (2007)
Coastline:
350 km
Maritime claims:
Exclusive Economic Zone: 200
nautical miles, Territorial Sea: 12 nautical miles
Economic activities:
Agriculture, including fishing,
hunting, and forestry.
Marine Protected Areas:
There are no legally established
MPAs in Comoros. However, there are proposals
for the creation of two MPAs, namely, Coelacanth
and Moheli MPAs.
Climate:
Tropical with the influence of
north-northwest monsoon ("kashkazi")
which brings heavy rainfall from November to April.
The trade winds from the south-southeast ("kussi")
correspond to a dry and cool season. The average
temperature range is 23°C to 28°C with variations
depending on altitude. .
Elevation Points:
Lowest point: Indian Ocean 0
m, Highest point: Le Kartala 2,360 m
Biodiversity
The Comoros, from their recent
volcanic nature, their exiguity and their multi-insularity
have a great originality which the diversity of
the landscapes and the richness of the biodiversity
(fauna and flora) translate.
The variety of the coastal and
marine ecosystems met (coral mangroves, reefs,
underwater beaches, herbaria) constitutes a potential
to be protected and develop from the tourist point
of view.
The Comorian flora and fauna
intrinsically have interests economic, scientific,
entertaining, aesthetic and cultural which deserve
to be protected and developed. The discovery in
1938 of the Coelacanth (Latimeria Challumnae)
in Comorian water allowed indeed, to make enormous
progress in the field of the anatomical evolution
of the vertebrate ones. This alive fossil which
one believed extinct (it did not have there fossil
traces of this fish since 80 million years) represents
at the same time an example of a endemism led
to the extreme and an animal whose position in
the evolution is single. Coral, rich formations
of 50 species, developed differently around the
islands and this, in relation to the age of the
islands and the local hydrodynamic conditions.
They occupy approximately 60% of the littoral
of Large-Comore, 80% of that of Anjouan and nearly
100% of that of Moheli.
National Action plan
of Adaptation to the climatic changes (BREADED)
Executive Summary
The development of the National
Action plan of Adaptation to the climatic changes
(BREADED) is the fruit of a participative process
which was pressed on basic studies, investigations
of ground, consultations and many meetings of
work and workshops. This Action plan rises from
a preliminary analysis of the climate.
This analysis revealed a marked
evolution of the climate, these thirty last years,
by: fluctuations of precipitations and a shift
in the season, of the early and prolonged dryness
and, by a rise in the average temperature about
1°C. The historical observation showed a tendency
to the increase in the extreme weather phenomena
during the same period. The participative evaluations
of the vulnerability and the adaptation as well
as the public investigations carried out in parallel
within the framework of this action plan showed
the great vulnerability in particular of the sectors
ensuring the poor, the basic means of existence.
The sources of this vulnerability
are: an economy largely dependent on the agricultural
sector; les zones de subsidence ; difficult economic
and social conditions, characterized by a high
rate of unemployment and poverty; a fragile natural
environment; a relatively high demographic growth;
an agricultural intensification; a bad occupation
of the grounds; insufficient institutional capacities;
a context of weak economic diversification; problems
of drinking water and the access to the resource;
a concentration of the principal cities on the
coastal fringe where the majority of the population
saw; an obsolete legislation or insufficiently
careful ;the chump-end-totality built infrastructures
unless 6 oversized metres of the sea-level , in
the absence of rules and protecting norms against
climate risks in the conception and the infrastructures
upkeep; the traditional habitat in straw and unaffected
cob badly to inclemency.
The situation results in chronic
difficulties of supply water, a fall of the agricultural
production and inshore fishing, a reduction in
the incomes, a high cost of access to food and
an increase in the food insecurity. The diseases
such as malaria, the dengue, the cholera, hepatitis
A and the typhoid one progress to great steps
as well as blindness.
The sector analyses and the socio-economic
data made it possible to distinguish the farmers
from subsistence and the fishermen (62%), the
farmers of revenue and the stockbreeders (45%),
the inactive ones (41%) and the independent ones
of the abstract sector (39%), as being the most
vulnerable groups.
The particularly vulnerable zones
are the areas with weak pluviometry, generally
located at the East of each island, with a relatively
high demography and an incidence of poverty and
presenting conditions favourable to the development
of malaria and hydrous diseases, with abundance
of the precarious habitat. The majority of the
degraded grounds are in these zones where coastal
erosion is also quite marked.
The anticipated potential impacts
are a reduction accelerated in the agricultural
production and fishing; an increased salinization
(salt) of the aquifers coastal; an increase in
the marine level of about 20 cm in 2050, with
destruction of 29% of the roads and works by flood;
a paralysis of the economic activities; the displacement
from at least 10% of the population and a loss
of 734 hectares cultivable grounds; disappearance
of the reefs and the beaches with risks increased
on the tourist potential; amplification and geographical
extension of paludism and other diseases to vectorial
transmission. Lastly, considerable losses on the
level of the coastal infrastructures estimated
at approximately 400 million USD, that is to say
2,2 times GDP of 2001.
The current and potential impacts
of the climatic changes are likely to sap several
decades of efforts against poverty and precariousness,
today still prone of serious national concerns.
. It is thus under the constraint and the urgency
that the country was committed working out this
Action plan in order to increase its capacity
of resistance to change climatic and to the variability
of the climate. This document does not have vocation
to establish general objectives as regards development.
It is articulated around the objectives of development
in the short and medium term which contribute
to the adaptation in order to increase their effectiveness.
For more information, kindly
contact the Nairobi Convention Focal Point for
Comoros, Mr Farid Anasse
National Focal Points
 |
Mr.
Farid Anasse
Chef de Département SIG
Point Focal National de la Convention de
Nairobi
Ministère de l'Agriculture de la
Pêche et de l'Environnement
BP 289 Moroni
Union des Comores
Tel +269 327068
Fax +269 762428
Email: convention_nairobi@comorestelecom.km |
The focal points institutions
have been supported to operationalise their offices
and to initiate a reporting mechanism for the
Convention by compiling national status reports
on the coastal and marine environment.
Read
More..
For more information on the Focal
points roles and terms of reference, please Click
here
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