Environmental Protection as Disasters’ Risk Reduction Strategy in Rwanda: Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices of Community Members in Kamonyi District

Abstract

The world is facing an increasing frequency and intensity of disasters (natural and man-made) that has had devastating impacts. As reported by the secretariat of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR, 2015), the last ten years have seen 478,100 people killed, more than 2.5 billion people affected and about US$ 690 billion in economic losses. Disasters triggered by hydrometeorological hazards amounted for 97 percent of the total people affected by disasters, and 60 percent of the total economic losses. Environmental changes, such as anthropogenic global warming, promise to create new challenges to the security and sustainability of communities around the world. (http://www.gdrc.org/uem/disasters/disenvi/intro.html).