The Sunday News
Sharon Chimenya, Features Correspondent
THE month of February is generally a wetlands month with February 2 dedicated to commemorating the important ecological sites that feed into various rivers and other man-made water reservoirs.
But in the past, and for lack of ecological consciousness, the day usually passed like any other day while stakeholders converged in teak-furnished boardrooms to talk about wetlands somehow divorced from the actual sites, and actual people who should protect them.
The benefits of the wetlands and the need to protect them was a far-fetched story to the communities, for they were not made aware of the reasons why they should protect them, only apart from what they generally appreciated from tradition such as their sacredness and tales about mermaids.
Having realised that there is need to for rural communities to be in sync with the wetlands story, the government has in the recent past been involving those that matter in the protection of wetlands, making the commemorations in hotels and city boardrooms a gone by era.
It is in that light that Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga officiated at the World Wetlands Day in the Njovo area, Zezai Village, Ward 18, south of Morgenster Mission in Masvingo District where the community initiated a wetland rehabilitation programme and is now reaping the benefits through agricultural developmental projects.
The community which has over 500 beneficiaries is enjoying the flourishing apiculture, banana project, aquaculture, poultry and horticulture production, with the most important aspect being the harvesting of water through ecologically smart methods.
They have also welcomed the restoration of the spiritual realm as they claim that the mermaid that used to stay in the sacred wetland had returned.
The idea of restoring the wetlands dovetails with the country’s economic blueprint, National Development Strategy 1 that points out that the country’s wetlands have come under severe pressure as the demand for housing and water increases.
The economic blueprint however, notes that infrastructure developments should not continue on wetlands, urging the country to respect the dictates of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of 1971.
The convention obliges countries to safeguard wetlands and sustainably manage them to ensure their capacities are not impaired so that they continue to provide essential ecosystem services.
Government has during the NDS1 strategy period prioritised the protection of the environment with one of the main objectives under the national outcome of a protected environment being to increase the areas of wetlands sustainably managed from 701 100 hectares in 2020 to 1051 650 hectares by 2025.
The Vice-President Dr Constantino Chiwenga urged the communities to protect the wetlands and desist from actions that impact their existence.
“My key message to you today is that wetlands are important to us, let us protect them and keep our rivers flowing. Where there is damage, we should work to rehabilitate and restore our wetlands.
I note with concern that in some areas especially in urban areas some people have started building illegal structures on wetlands.” The chairperson of the Njovo wetlands responsible for the bee keeping project and the orchards Mr Modrick Taruvinga said the projects were assisting them in protecting their wetland.
“We started these projects in 2018 with the first one being the protection of the wetland, then the management of water through water harvesting tanks. We have the nutritional garden, bee keeping, poultry, orchard and fish farming. We were given fish by Zimparks for our aquaculture.
“I am the chairperson of the apiculture and orchard. We started bee keeping in 2019 with the assistance of an organisation called Aquaculture that donated 20 beehives while Allied Timbers gave us an addition of 20 hives.
Aquaculture then added another 20 hives, so we started the project with 60 hives. From the 60 hives, 27 already have bees and we have so far harvested honey from five hives. We are anticipating that in the next three months we might be able to harvest from the remaining 22 hives.”
Meanwhile, the chairperson of the other projects Mr Munyaradzi Mabika said water in the community had become scarce as people were now farming in the wetland.
“Water was no longer available because the area that was once protected by our fathers had been degraded. We were now herding our cattle in the wetland; we had set up our gardens and others were now farming in the wetlands and we realised the site was being threatened by human activities and we encouraged villagers to stop disturbing the wetland and our calls were heeded.”
The commemoration of the world wetlands day theme for this year was “Wetlands Action for People and Nature” which calls for people to take action in protection of wetlands.
It is an appeal to invest financial, human and political capital to save the world’s wetlands from disappearing and to restore those degraded and fragmented.
“The theme highlights the importance of actions that ensure that wetlands are conserved and sustainably utilised,” said the Minister of Environment, Climate, Tourism and Hospitality Industry Mangaliso Ndlovu.
The Vice-President donated five suits for harvesting honey, gloves, gumboots, drip irrigation equipment for a hectare and promised to deliver the fence for the protection of the wetland to minimise the interference by animals and people.
Zimbabwe prides itself for being among the best in environment and natural resource management within the region. The country has about 12,3 percent of its land being protected National Parks and about 2,6 percent being State forests.
Over and above these, there are community and privately-owned conservation and plantation areas which significantly increase the total area under some form of protection.
However, there has been a worrying reduction in both the quantity and quality of natural resources emanating from increased pollution, land degradation, deforestation, over exploitation, land use changes, siltation of rivers and water bodies as well as climate change.
This reduction in quality and quantity of natural resources has a negative bearing on the country’s socio-economic development and other sectors, especially tourism which depends heavily on these resources.
Government through the NDS1, however, is committed to ensuring that there is rehabilitation of degraded land and restoration of such sites as wetlands so that they continue giving out their ecological value to communities.
