Thursday, February 08, 2007

Forestry Department’s closed doors….by I.P.A. Manning

There is much talk in Zambian civil society of the necessity for dealing with civil service corruption and apathy. The Forestry Department, once one of the finest in Africa, its roots laid in the soil of an England of 1066 and the creation by William the Conqueror of game and forest reserves – in 1215 embraced in Magna Carta, appears intent on continuing its degradation: local and national forests encroached, watersheds pillaged, illegal logging countenanced, complaints of the sale on 99 year leasehold to speculators ignored, community leaders who object, fobbed off.

On 8 February, I once more accompanied a member of the community who are objecting to the alienation to a businessman of the West Mvuvye National Forest No. 54 by the Nyimba District Council and the Ministry of Lands – an illegal action as state land may not be sold, to find that the Director, Anna Masinje again refused to see us, and the Chief Extension Officer, Sangalube, who had only two weeks previously promised to take action, would not even venture forth from his desk to greet us. As in other parts of government civil society critics and whistleblowers are not very welcome.

Of course, the Forestry Department, in common with all of the Zambian Government, receive substantial funding from donors. In the case of Forestry, the Fins have long been prominent; at present funding the Provincial Forestry Action Programme Phase 2, which involves establishing collaborative management regimes in forest reserves. Perhaps the Fins don’t know of the illegal alienations, of the attempts for three years by our community trust to enter into a joint forest management agreement with the Forestry Department and having the land sold from under us, of the failure of the Forestry officers to investigate this and other complaints, of the illegal logging by the Chinese in Eastern Province…the list goes on.

My community colleague cannot, unfortunately, hang on in Lusaka; his money is running out, and he needs to return to his village to see if there is anything left there from the massive flooding of the Luangwa river. His family will be huddled in the trees, his crops washed away, the school flooded, but he will come again, and with help stay a little longer, perhaps make a nuisance of himself, learning a little of what is needed to help his people out of dire poverty.

8 February 2007