Bringing in chiefs into environmental debate noble

THE major thrust by the Ministry of Environment, Wildlife and Climate and the Environmental Management Agency to involve the traditional leadership in the protection of the natural environment, especially the woodlands and the wetlands, is building on a significant traditional role of chiefs and heads.

In what is termed the “tragedy of the commons” resources that are held in common for the enjoyment of all can be destroyed through overuse and lack of support.

People will tend to maximise their use of these, regardless of what others and even themselves need, and they can be destroyed.

This is why when there are no controls rivers can be polluted, forests chopped down, game hunted to extinction, fisheries overfished and wetlands turned into stinking bogs and then filled with scrap and garbage.

Right back deep into pre-colonial times most traditional leaders had the instinctive grasp of the need for ensuring that common access to resources also had to be fair access and that the resources could not be destroyed through greed.

So they did effectively manage the access and made sure that people using the resources did so properly.

We need to remember that conserving resources does not necessarily mean that they are set aside and no one may use them.

What it does mean is that the resources are used sustainably and are not regarded as infinite, and that at times this might mean very little use for some resources, to allow the downstream benefits of those resources to be so much greater.

So culturally, there is that major background, the chiefs as the guardians of the land and the waters and the forests, able to assign use, even exclusive use in some cases, but balancing that with the greater good.

That role came into direct conflict with the colonial authorities who reckoned any resource could be taken over for the absolute enjoyment of a single person regardless of fairness, and regardless of how well or badly it was used.

A title deed allowed total destruction of an asset, a concept that was not simply unjust, but incredibly stupid.

A lot of law has been changed since the heyday of colonialism, with even the colonialists seeing some conflicts, at least among themselves even if they ignored the indigenous majority, and a surprising amount of modern environmental law now reflects more the traditional views of a thoughtful chief than someone like, say, Cecil Rhodes, or unfortunately some of his successors regardless of their own ancestry.

The other reason why the environmental authorities are keen to bring in chiefs is that they have the best intelligence sources as to what is happening in their areas, “faster than social media” as one has put it, and so can take action either themselves, or by informing the appropriate authority or most probably doing the too together.

It does not always work, of course, and we have seen some traditional leaders who are inept or greedy and who have in effect retreated from their proper job, or have even accepted bribes.

But a lot do understand what their role is, and when it comes to environmental concerns we have the interesting position that traditional understanding and best modern practice tend to agree, so it possible to combine traditional authority and modern law in many environmental areas.

But we all need to take the environment more seriously and be willing to stand up and be counted to make sure that we do not destroy our common heritage.

The EMA has, since being set up, battled to preserve the wetlands, for example, with a lot of dubious business people, all too often backed by corrupt or stupid local authorities, willing to let short-term greed destroy the environment that longer-term prosperity is reliant on.

So we see commercial development nibbling into the wetlands, draining them and generally destroying them, and then the same developers complaining bitterly when flash floods damage their “development”.

It is possible to use their areas for multiple purposes, and this will become ever more important as Zimbabwe moves up the economic ladder and becomes ever more prosperous.

More intensive land use for farming, for urban development, for industry and for mining means we need to make sure this more intensive use does not destroy the environment.

We can also by retaining the wetlands and the forests not only preserve important environment resources, but also create the needed recreational land and open space we all need.

Purists might object, but the fact that most golf courses in Zimbabwe and most sports clubs were allocated land unsuitable for building, the wetlands, meant that these were largely preserved and efforts by the present cycle of city councils to sell them off shows just how fragile some of the preservation has become when greed trumps common sense, let alone a decent appreciation of the environment.

While traditional leaders have direct jurisdiction in many traditional aspects of life in their own areas, they also have a great deal of influence in how the society and culture as a whole function.

A lot of our modern well-educated traditional leaders have thought hard about how to maintain the positive values in a rapidly changing society, where the outward form of how a value is expressed may change dramatically, but the core remains strong and useful.

In the environmental debate they need to be active in ensuring that people do understand how life is better when common resources are not destroyed by greed and selfishness, and where it is possible to create systems that work and where the majority can work out ways where we can all benefit of these resources while maintaining the resources.