Our politicians and environmental
activists loosely throw around the term, “global warming” to indicate
the recent discoveries of a changing pattern in climate.
They cite instances of years with exceptionally high temperatures as well as an overall warmer temperature. While this is generally a well-accepted assertion, many climatologists will claim that we are going through a global cool down.
The evidence for this includes record droughts and very low temperatures.
While there is no definitive answer as to which side is correct, it is clear the southern parts of the country — Masvingo, Matabeleland and Midlands -have suffered the effects of global warming.
Armed with this truth, it looks as if environment is an idea whose time has come. Government statements on the need to preserve the environment are common place.
There are massive schemes for afforestation. Last December, thousands of seedlings were planted when a group led by one Phillip Mataranyika and Environment minister Francis Nhema embarked on a sponsorship walk to help regenerate the country through planting trees.
Zimbabwe has been praised all over the world for what it has done to preserve the rhino and elephants and 16% of our land mass is now protected national parks and wildlife sanctuaries.
There are demands to strengthen their protection and increase their area.
Political parties’ manifestoes take care to mention the importance of environment.
But there is a major problem with this entire range of activities and concerns: they do not appear to be based on a holistic understanding of the relationship between environment and the development process in this country.
The programmes are ad hoc, without clear priorities, and there is too much of a policeman’s attitude.
They seem to be based on the belief that concern for the environment essentially means protecting and conserving it, partly from development programmes but mainly from the people themselves.
There is little effort to modify the development process itself in a manner that will bring it into greater harmony with the needs of the people and with the need to maintain ecological balance, while increasing the productivity of our land, water and forest resources.
The post-independence political debate has centred on two major issues: equity and growth.
The environmental concern has added a third dimension: sustainability. Zimbabwe’s biggest challenge today is to identify and implement a development process that will lead to greater equity, growth and sustainability.
The environment is not just pretty trees and wildlife, threatened plants and ecosystems. It is literally the entity on which we all subsist, and on which entire agricultural and industrial development depends.
Development can take place at the cost of the environment only up to a point. Beyond that point, it will be like the foolish person who was trying to cut the very branch on which he was sitting.
Development without concern for the environment can only be short-term. In the long-term, it can only be anti-development and can go on only at the cost of enormous human suffering, increased poverty and oppression.
Zimbabwe may be rapidly approaching that point.
But, when you really take a long, hard look at international politics, you will notice the US has reached where it is at present due to its high consumption of fossil fuels. Zimbabwe does not really have a political party that focuses on the environment completely.
When there was a hue and cry about trees in the last few years, it was mainly due to direct threats to livelihood like what happened since the launch of the fast-track land reform in 2000.
In Europe and the US however, the environment is something that can be actually considered an active threat to economic progress.
In Zimbabwe, awareness in people at the grassroots level and the higher echelons of power about the importance of the environment is almost negligible.
With rising poverty, political squabbles in the inclusive government, health issues and unemployment taking priority; no party actually finds environmental issues an adequate plan to gain votes.
Other countries are earmarking varying amounts of their budgets to green growth. At last count, Zimbabwe has devoted nothing to the same aspect of green development.
Global warming affects all of us uniformly even if one country uses less or if the other uses more.
Rising sea levels can literally flood low lying areas of Zimbabwe in Muzarabani and Zambezi Valley, along with the increased incidence of droughts, floods and famines in Matabeleland region among others due to climate change and continued emissions from developed countries like the US.
With the economic boom in Zimbabwe since 2009, it will very soon become necessary for Zimbabwean political parties to take an active interest in the problem.
At present, the green drive to reduce emissions, recycle and conserve is being run by a mish-mash of active dynamic NGOs.
But that is not enough. Unless Zimbabwe finds a way to raise awareness at grassroots level and includes green policies in every aspect of its current development, it could very soon find itself losing its natural resources due to simple hard-headed ignorance
They cite instances of years with exceptionally high temperatures as well as an overall warmer temperature. While this is generally a well-accepted assertion, many climatologists will claim that we are going through a global cool down.
The evidence for this includes record droughts and very low temperatures.
While there is no definitive answer as to which side is correct, it is clear the southern parts of the country — Masvingo, Matabeleland and Midlands -have suffered the effects of global warming.
Armed with this truth, it looks as if environment is an idea whose time has come. Government statements on the need to preserve the environment are common place.
There are massive schemes for afforestation. Last December, thousands of seedlings were planted when a group led by one Phillip Mataranyika and Environment minister Francis Nhema embarked on a sponsorship walk to help regenerate the country through planting trees.
Zimbabwe has been praised all over the world for what it has done to preserve the rhino and elephants and 16% of our land mass is now protected national parks and wildlife sanctuaries.
There are demands to strengthen their protection and increase their area.
Political parties’ manifestoes take care to mention the importance of environment.
But there is a major problem with this entire range of activities and concerns: they do not appear to be based on a holistic understanding of the relationship between environment and the development process in this country.
The programmes are ad hoc, without clear priorities, and there is too much of a policeman’s attitude.
They seem to be based on the belief that concern for the environment essentially means protecting and conserving it, partly from development programmes but mainly from the people themselves.
There is little effort to modify the development process itself in a manner that will bring it into greater harmony with the needs of the people and with the need to maintain ecological balance, while increasing the productivity of our land, water and forest resources.
The post-independence political debate has centred on two major issues: equity and growth.
The environmental concern has added a third dimension: sustainability. Zimbabwe’s biggest challenge today is to identify and implement a development process that will lead to greater equity, growth and sustainability.
The environment is not just pretty trees and wildlife, threatened plants and ecosystems. It is literally the entity on which we all subsist, and on which entire agricultural and industrial development depends.
Development can take place at the cost of the environment only up to a point. Beyond that point, it will be like the foolish person who was trying to cut the very branch on which he was sitting.
Development without concern for the environment can only be short-term. In the long-term, it can only be anti-development and can go on only at the cost of enormous human suffering, increased poverty and oppression.
Zimbabwe may be rapidly approaching that point.
But, when you really take a long, hard look at international politics, you will notice the US has reached where it is at present due to its high consumption of fossil fuels. Zimbabwe does not really have a political party that focuses on the environment completely.
When there was a hue and cry about trees in the last few years, it was mainly due to direct threats to livelihood like what happened since the launch of the fast-track land reform in 2000.
In Europe and the US however, the environment is something that can be actually considered an active threat to economic progress.
In Zimbabwe, awareness in people at the grassroots level and the higher echelons of power about the importance of the environment is almost negligible.
With rising poverty, political squabbles in the inclusive government, health issues and unemployment taking priority; no party actually finds environmental issues an adequate plan to gain votes.
Other countries are earmarking varying amounts of their budgets to green growth. At last count, Zimbabwe has devoted nothing to the same aspect of green development.
Global warming affects all of us uniformly even if one country uses less or if the other uses more.
Rising sea levels can literally flood low lying areas of Zimbabwe in Muzarabani and Zambezi Valley, along with the increased incidence of droughts, floods and famines in Matabeleland region among others due to climate change and continued emissions from developed countries like the US.
With the economic boom in Zimbabwe since 2009, it will very soon become necessary for Zimbabwean political parties to take an active interest in the problem.
At present, the green drive to reduce emissions, recycle and conserve is being run by a mish-mash of active dynamic NGOs.
But that is not enough. Unless Zimbabwe finds a way to raise awareness at grassroots level and includes green policies in every aspect of its current development, it could very soon find itself losing its natural resources due to simple hard-headed ignorance
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