A lake to remember: human-made loss disrupting lives in Al Shakhlouba Village, Egypt
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A lake to remember: human-made loss disrupting lives in Al Shakhlouba Village, Egypt
Al
Shakhlouba is a relatively small community (by Egyptian standards), with
20,000 inhabitants. Its context may not be unique in how it is affected by
climate change, or in how its population struggle is now a daily endeavour
and not an isolated seasonal occurrence. Yet it is a good example to showcase
how communities in symbiotic existence with nature can fare if such a
relationship has been broken by one party: humans in this case. Nature –
personified in the bounty provided by the ecosystem – becomes less able to
give the same expected yield, as people ignore the signs of a downward
spiral. The Al Shakhlouba community have been flagging this ecological
degradation (amplified by climate change) for a long time, but have no self-
governance or adequate political representation to manifest the change they
need. This is due, not to a lack of awareness, but economic and political
disenfranchisement.
Hence, it is crucial to look at the subject of climate loss and damages
beyond the sovereign negotiations at COP conferences and to demand that the
communities themselves are adequately seated at the table, as they are the
ones facing the burning of their rainforests in the Amazon and they are the
ones facing the collapse of the fish in their lake of El Burrullus; same
struggle, but different geographies.
