Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for appearing before us today. I believe it is Mr. Mukusya who said that you are moving forward and making progress but that for every step forward you move one step back and are not getting anywhere. It must be extremely discouraging to see the results you achieve constantly threatened despite all the effort that went into them.
It is obvious — and in my mind, this is how things should be done — that there should be coordination between foreign aid, governments and the local people, knowing of course that peasants are often the last consulted. So I fully agree with you that Canada should make an effort in this regard because these people have experienced the situation, they have traditional knowledge of these problems and they can offer solutions.
However, when we talk about climate change, as you know, these impacts are beyond the grasp of individuals and of many States. Unfortunately, Canada is not doing very well in this respect from what we can see at the present time.
I wonder to what extent your respective governments, or the governments with whom you work, realize the enormity of the danger that hangs over mankind. And to what extent do they make a linkage between what is happening locally and the fact that at a global level there is not enough of an effort to reverse the situation?