Climate change’s abrasive relationship with the San

06 Feb, 2022 - 00:02 0 Views
Climate change’s abrasive relationship with the San San people (Photo Credit: Getty Images)

The Sunday News

Vincent Gono, Features Editor
DEVELOPMENT theorists posit that the modernisation theory casts development as a uniform evolutionary route that all societies follow, from agricultural, rural, and traditional communities to post-industrial, urban, and modern forms of life.

Put simply, all societies, once engaged in the modernisation process, follow a predetermined sequence of developmental stages which are traditional economies, transition to takeoff, takeoff itself, drive to maturity, age of high consumption, and post-industrial society, Chirot and Hall (1982).

The theory emphasises internal forces and sources of socio-economic development such as formal education, market-based economy, and democratic and secular political structures.

It is an evolutionary change, not a revolutionary one and it usually takes generations or even centuries to complete, and its profound impact will be felt only through time.

A lot of societies especially in the third world countries are going through the process of modernisation where at national level there is use of three main variables which are internal factors, cultural values and social institutions where the key concepts of tradition and modernity are considered to be generally beneficial to society as a whole.

The evolution of modernisation from the classic modernisation to the new modernisation can also be taken on board where in the classical approach, tradition is an obstacle to development while the new approach sees tradition as an additive factor of development.

In Zimbabwe however, different societies have reacted differently to modernisation and this is so because of the historical contexts that have always been definitive of the level of appreciation to the socio-economic and political evolution that communities go through.

The multi-cultural dimensions of Zimbabwe’s ethnic landscape provide a good case study for the various approaches to modernisation that have been taken.

While some communities have taken less time to adopt new ways of doing things, some have taken a little longer, meandering and skirting the new ways of life and are still caught up in the old.

But their aversion to modernisation is catching up with them in an uncomfortable way exposing their not so splendid isolation and the need for a quick motion to catch up with other communities can never be emphasised.

One of the few communities that has a belated encounter with modernisation is the San community that is resident in Tsholotsho district in the expansive Matabeleland North province whose transition has been blamed on conspiring natural geographical and anthropological factors.

Numbering 2 800 to 3 000 people from about 300 homesteads according to current figures obtained by Sunday News from Tsholotsho acting district administrator Mr Aaron Gono in a recent interview, the San community is one of the indigenous ethnic groups in the country.

Mr Gono said prior to the introduction of colonialism and capitalism the San community led a nomadic lifestyle with hunting and gathering underpinning its livelihood.

Over the years, the community has been struggling to unbuckle itself from its unsustainable way of life and is still resident in the traditional economy stage with baby steps out of it proving difficult, almost painful.

His sentiments are corroborated with research that says the advent of colonialism and the setting up of national parks and game reserves forced San communities into a sedentary lifestyle as hunting became illegalised Hitchcock, (2001).

Besides disenfranchising the San communities of their livelihoods, new land policies also had other challenges.
The communities were to be in constant conflict with the institutions that were charged with overseeing the protected areas, and that led to an aggravation of their poverty and they lacked an economic cushion after their way of life was illegalised.

Levels of poverty amongst the San community in Tsholotsho are attributable to their slow pace of transition from a hunting and gathering based livelihood system to a market-based livelihood system sustained by agriculture.

This is despite government efforts to ensure they are encompassed into the whole. Nonetheless, the government and First Lady Amai Mnangagwa have been at the forefront to change the lives of the San for the better.

Mr Gono said the San community is concentrated in three wards in the district of Tsholotsho which are Wards 7, 8 and 10. In Ward 7 they are found in areas such as Phathalika, Phelandaba and Mpilo.

In terms of access to water, the areas are problematic, the water table is almost inaccessible and borehole drilling has failed to yield desired results. As a result they rely on water from earth dams that they share with wild animals.

“They even walk long and painful distances to the unprotected sources of water. And besides, the water is saline and not fit for gardening.

They also struggle to do nutritional garden because the water is not suitable for agricultural purposes making their transition from a hunting and gathering life difficult,” said the acting district administrator.

He says the San community is close to the sprawling Hwange National Park meaning there is competition with wild animals such as elephants. One cannot therefore rule out the possibility of human-wildlife conflicts where their constant encounter with the wild forces them into their old way of life.

In Ward 8, Mr Gono said the areas are Gariya and Butabubili. The situation, he said, was not very different from that of Ward 7, just that Ward 8 is prone to flooding.

He said around 2014 and 2015 people were moved from Gariya area to a more suitable area in Butabubili because water from Manziamnyama River causing flooding.

He added that what makes them more prone to the effects was that they were still using their traditional ways of building structures.

The San don’t use bricks but they build dagga houses that are not strong and climate proofed from the harsh vagaries of the weather.

In Ward 10 around Mtshina area, he said, they were also affected by flooding from Manziamnyama River but over and above all, the San community still rely on the natural ecosystem and were detached from other livelihoods activities such as agriculture.

They still want to hunt and gather fruits and have no cushion whatsoever to the changes brought about by climate change which has resulted in the depletion of biodiversity.

Their situation is that of vulnerability where droughts and prolonged dry spells affect them the most and compounding their poverty levels.

“They used to get services from the ecosystem such as fruits, tubes, honey, ants and natural medicine but due to climate change effects, these are no longer produced as the ecosystem is shrinking in response to the global phenomena rendering them more vulnerable,” said Mr Gono.

In terms of interventions, he noted that the district was implementing various livelihoods programmes funded by the government through the department of social development.

He said they were doing poultry projects as part of climate change adaptation initiatives so that the San community starts income generating projects through a pass-on scheme.

They are also engaged in dam scooping to open more water holding capacity in the earth dams with the intention of introducing nutritional gardens in areas of Mtshina in Ward 10 as the land is fertile and the water not very salty.

Government through the District Development Fund is also constructing Gariya Dam in Ward 8 which is almost 80 percent complete.

The dam is a disaster risk reduction project that will ensure water from Manziamnyama River is harnessed to reverse the effects of flooding.

“The Ministry of Agriculture promised that they will give us fingerlings so that the communities engage in fisheries. We are also looking at tourism where we are saying canoeing and other recreational activities should be taken on board.

The goat scheme is also part of adaptation measures that we are pursuing. We want to introduce the Boer goats that are resistant to drought on a pass-on basis as we take them on board in all government initiatives to try and ensure we build resilience to climate shocks through adaptation,” said Mr Gono.

He said they were also pushing for the continued uptake of the climate smart agriculture concept the intwasa/pfumvudza scheme that was enhancing food security.

“They do not have draught power and pfumvudza is making life easier from them because it doesn’t require mechanisation,” he said.

The San community, he added, was taking slow but perfunctory steps towards realisation of government vision of living no-one behind as they were starting to appreciate the cultivation small grains where they were growing cereals such as sorghum, maize and millet.

In terms of humanitarian relief through food aid, the acting district administrator said courtesy of the New Dispensation, the directive was that they include everyone from the San community in all drought and food relief measures.

He said they were making a lot of inroads in ensuring that there was appreciation that food relief was a short term measure and encouraging them to do agriculture and other livelihoods activities as sure ways of sustaining themselves.

Efforts are also being made to encourage them on the route of formal education, embracing technology and the dynamics of a market based economy which are demands of a modern and civilised society.

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