My recent move back to my small mostly agricultural home town in Northern Virginia has given me a different perspective on many things. From my office I watch how the seasonal changes affect the woodlands behind my house.

As activists and leaders meet in Copenhagen to try to find common ground on an equitable approach to mitigating the impact of climate change, these talks have much more meaning for me. Like most folks, I guess I don’t really pay attention until things take on a more immediate face. Each time I have to cart my trash to the landfill, I am reminded how waste is poluting the earth. The idea of not buying bottled water because the plastic will be around for much too long makes a lot more sense. What has become much more vivid as well is how all of this affects the lives of so many communities in African countries, which is largely agricultural.

A recent report released by the United Nations Population Fund helps me to better understand the complexity of the situation. The report, “State of World Population 2009:Facing a changing world: women, population and climate” notes that the number of people living on Africa’s vast continent has doubled over the past 25 years. It is now over a billion of the 6.8 billion on the planet.

“While the developed countries have contributed the most to human-induced climate change up to now, people in poor countries—most dramatically in Africa—already are much more likely to die as a result of the climate change that occurred up to 2000″

Maybe big, global issues loom too large for most of us to think we can make a difference. But as this report points out, efforts have to come from all sides. For example, guarding the rights of women and working for reproductive health has an impact on climate change. Supporting civic education in African communities is important in building community awareness and participation. Supporting agricultural practices that respect traditional knowledge is also part of the effort.

There are so many great efforts underway in African communities to combat climate change. I’d like to highlight some of them so if you have links to website or videos about African efforts to combat climate change please drop me a line so I can highlight some of them.