Put more effort in veld fire management — minister
ENVIRONMENT, Climate, Tourism and Hospitality Industry Minister Mangaliso Ndlovu has urged stakeholders and policymakers to put more effort in veld fire management.
He was speaking during a press briefing on the National Veld Fire Awareness Week, which falls in the second week of May each year, under Zimbabwe’s environmental calendar.
The week was set aside for the dissemination of information on the prevention of veld fires and protection of ecosystems.
The Minister said the week is guided by the Veld Fire Management Plan and Implementation Strategies of 2006 and the annual plans crafted for each specific year.
“As a nation, we have progressed significantly well in addressing food security issues through Government initiatives such as Command Agriculture; crop and livestock components and hence the need to protect this harvest from veld fires.
“The aim being to create a self-sufficient and food surplus economy premised on the fact that a protected environment creates an enabling environment for thriving both crop and livestock production sectors.
“If we don’t put enough effort to prevent veld fires, we risk losing the hard-earned crop yields and animal forage, derailing all our efforts of reviving our national economic status
to the Upper Middle Class we aim for in 2030.
“Veld fires are, indeed, an environmental challenge given their wanton destruction of the environment, life, property and agricultural harvest,” said Minister Ndlovu.
He added: “Each year, the country loses an average of a million hectares of forests and grasslands to veld fires, depriving wildlife and livestock of pastures.
“Fire has surely become more of an enemy than a friend and as such its management is a priority area in the National Development Strategy (NDS1).
“We are now working on the relevant amendment to the said statutory
instrument.”
“My Ministry has collaborated with the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Fisheries and Rural Development and the two are working together in the anti-veld fire drive.
“The Ministry is also engaging the traditional leaders and other local leadership on veld fire management, through various strategies, so that they cascade information to their people and also prosecute offenders at their courts.
“All stakeholders should play their part. I also want to encourage all of us to be vigilant and to urge the key stakeholders to pay their part in fire management this year.”