Report from a Muzungu's Perspective

Many people ask us: Why environmental education? Why Africa? Ann writes a response as part of a Masters assignment for Royal Roads University in Victoria, BC.


AFRICANS NEED TO CARE! A report from a Muzungu perspective

The Role of Over-population in Africa:

Figure One: Sign on the lawn of a primary African school

In North America, environmental issues appear to be in the forefront of many people’s minds. Political leaders devote time and resources to the subject, governments initiate policy regarding it, and almost every newspaper is riddled with some story on an environmental hot topic, whether it be as local as ‘Vote no to landfill number 99’ or as global-reaching as ‘Meltdown for the climate inevitable if global warming continues to heat up’!

In my recent journey to Africa, I discovered that environmental concern is limited or nonexistent amongst the African people. It seems unrealistic to imagine Africans jumping on the ‘Go Green’ band-wagon, when their country is riddled with AIDS, disease, poverty and hunger; however, Africans need to be concerned. Environmental compassion needs to be created because it will lead to action that will in turn ensure the subsistence of their people as well as the survival of other species.

Africa has 54 countries, covers 31 million km2 and is now estimated to be home to over 975 million people.[i] Unfortunately, Africa suffers from the blight of over-population. According to the Pan African Conservation Education organization, the population is growing at an average rate of approximately 3.6% per year.[ii] As the population increases, so does the demand for the natural resources required to survive: food, water, shelter, and space. In order to meet the demand, the environment is exploited to a point where renewable resources are used at a rate that exceeds that of their regeneration. This leads to a lack of resources, which serves to exacerbate the original problem. Over-exploitation will eventually result in the demise of all of Africa if sustainable actions aren’t taken to curb it.

The Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism in the Republic of South Africa recently reported that, “Community level over-exploitation can have severe consequences on biodiversity and the combined effects of deforestation and subsistence agriculture will totally denude natural woodlands in communal areas in southern Africa by 2020.”[iii] This is called a positive feedback loop because it leads to change within the system and in this case, that change is bad. For example, an increase in food requirements leads to overexploitation of farmland, which in turn depletes soil nutrients. As a result, the soil is degraded to a state that can no longer grow crops or feed animals, thus leading to a decrease in the very resource that was supposed to increase!

In 2004, the BBC reported that over 80% of Sub-Saharan Africa farmland plagued by severe degradation.[iv]

Ecosystem Services and their over-exploitation:

The underlying issue is a lack of understanding regarding the importance and dire necessity of ‘ecosystem services’, a term used to describe the wide range of things that the natural environment does to allow humans to exist. A recent article in Environmental Science and Policy comments that sadly, “the importance of ecosystem services is widely appreciated only upon their loss.” [v]Africa’s diverse continent has many ecosystems that each provide different services beneficial to humans. One of the most important and endangered of these is Africa’s wetlands, actually considered wastelands by many of the locals. For example, in Kampala, the capital city of Uganda, the area has lost almost all of its wetlands to the construction sector. [vi]

The value of the wetland’s services cannot be understated. Not only are they home to many plants and animals; they are also home to many products used by the people of Africa. This includes fish, wild fruits, water, medicine, pasture, wood fuel, poles for construction, and materials such as sand, gravel, clay, and thatch. In addition, the wetlands filter polluted water and act as natural sponges that soak up, store and slowly release water so as to prevent flooding and erosion. They can also be a source of recreation and education and some tribes consider them sacred.[vii]

It is the wetlands ability to modify the microclimate that left the Minister of Water and Environment in Uganda screaming, “Swamps and forests are the source of water! They are our heritage, but the rate at which they are being wiped out is not good for this country.”[viii] Sadly, the government has little control over the matter. In fact, encroachers invade the wetlands regularly and before the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) gets wind of it, they erect structures. When NEMA and the local law enforcers try to evict the squatters, in order to save the wetlands, the new residents chase them away with sticks and guns. [ix]

With every increase in population, the over-exploitation of the wetlands’ precious resources gets worse. In Kampala, wetlands are the last resort for development as all other areas have been taken. In other parts of Africa, people cultivate food or use it as a pasture for their animals. Overgrazing becomes a key issue and leads to the ‘tragedy of the commons’. A recent report on the Dynamics of Grazing Policy in southern Africa explains:

“When a resource is held in common, with many people having access to it, a self-interested rational actor will decide to increase his or her exploitation of the resource since he or she receives the full benefit of the increase, but the costs are spread among all users. The result of each person thinking this way, however, is the ruin of the commons, and thus of everyone using it. When applied to traditional African pastoralism, the result is overgrazing, soil erosion and bush encroachment.”[x]

The people of Africa live their lives, unaware of the tragedy they have inflicted upon themselves by overexploiting the ecosystem’s services.

Environmental Action:

The past efforts to conserve ecosystem services have failed. Classifying the value of each economic service is a waste of time in a continent trying to develop, since financial worth is meaningless to many of them. Current environmental policies are primarily defined by international conventions or based on donor conditionality, which may not correlate with national agendas and may be impossible for Africans to enforce without the proper resources or support. [xi] Although there is some evidence in support of conservation (an estimate of 4.7% of Africa’s total area is dedicated to this cause), it comes in a form of fortress conservation best implemented by paramilitary due to the clashes between the wildlife conservation interests and the livelihoods of the rural dwellers.[xii] Currently, the most active environmental response is lead by NGOs, but even those may appear altruistic on the outside when in reality they are designed to promote an internal conflicting agenda.[xiii]

It does little good to explain the dilemmas of decreasing biodiversity or tragedy of the commons to an AID’s-ridden mother who is working as a prostitute in order to feed her ‘small’ family of eight. For developing nations, a different approach is needed to instill compassion for the environment. This Muzungu (Ugandan word for white person) feels there is an alternative to these failed plans; Africans need to learn and execute alternatives to their current way of living.

Figure Two: Ugandan teacher uses Environmental Education curriculum learned at JGI workshop[xvi].

Community-based action:

Community-based action is an emerging substitute to traditional efforts that could lead to favourable change with regards to concern for the environment.

“Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) and the related community-based wildlife management (CBWM) are built on the “use it or lose it” idea that natural resources must ... benefit local communities or there will be no incentive for conservation and sustainable management.”[xiv]

The Jane Goodall Institute is embracing this concept and fuelling their campaign with many community-based action projects, one of which is the Ugandan teacher workshop on Environmental Education. “The future of Uganda, just like that of all other countries, depends on the children,” JGI exclaims.[xv]

The workshop offers a plethora of lesson plans for teachers that integrate core subjects with environmental education, while explicitly teaching children alternative actions that lead to a sustainable way of life. Why does the program target teachers instead of going directly to the schools? Because then the lessons will be community-based and not originate from the disconnected Muzungus.

Community-based methods are not really a new ideology. It comes from the old-adage: if you give a man a fish, he will eat for a day, but if you teach a man to fish, he will have enough fish to eat forever. Throwing money at poverty and hunger will not solve all the problems and ignoring them is irresponsible. In Africa, the leading cause of exploitation of ecosystem services is the population explosion. Through community-based education and implementation of sustainable alternatives, Africans will take charge of their future and put an end to their own poverty, disease and hunger; in other words: Africans will care about the environment.

Figure Three: A garden created and managed at Lake Victoria Primary School as a result of the JGI Roots and Shoots community-based project.

For more information, please visit the Jane Goodall Institute at http://www.janegoodall.org/
and the Pan African Conservation Education organization at http://www.paceproject.net/

REFERENCES:
[i] PACE: a series of environmental education films available through http://www.paceproject.net/ and http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats1.htm .

[ii] PACE: a series of environmental education films available through http://www.paceproject.net/

[iii] Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism : Republic of South Africa: Overexploitation. Retrieved from http://soer.deat.gov.za/ on March 17, 2009.

[iv] BBC. (2006). ‘Barren future’ for Africa’s soil. Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4860694.stm.

[v] Daily, G. (2000). Management objectives for the protection of ecosystem services. In Environmental Science and policy (Vol. 3) pp. 333-339.

[vi] Kiwawulo, C. (2008). Kampala wetlands are no more: what is the way forward. Retrieved from http://www.newvision.co.ug/E/9/522/657297 on March 17, 2009.

[vii] The Jane Goodall Institute, (2007). Teachers Guide for Primary 6 and 7. (Available from the Jane Goodall Institute, P. O. Box 462, Entebbe, Uganda.)

[viii] Kagiri, L. (2008). Minister wants forests protected. Retrieved from http://www.newvision.co.ug/ on March 17, 2009.

[ix] Kiwawulo, C. (2008). Kampala wetlands are no more: what is the way forward. Retrieved from http://www.newvision.co.ug/E/9/522/657297 on March 17, 2009.

[x] Rohde, R.F. et.al. (2006). Dynamics of grazing policy and practice: environmental and social impacts in three communal areas of southern Africa. In Environmental Science and Policy (Vol. 9) pp. 302-316.
[xi] Homewood, K. (2003). Policy, environment and development in African rangelands. In Environmental Science and Policy (Vol.7, 3) pp. 125-143.
[xii] Homewood, K. (2003). Policy, environment and development in African rangelands. In Environmental Science and Policy (Vol.7, 3) pp. 125-143

[xiii] Homewood, K. (2003). Policy, environment and development in African rangelands. In Environmental Science and Policy (Vol.7, 3) pp. 125-143

[xiv] Homewood, K. (2003). Policy, environment and development in African rangelands. In Environmental Science and Policy (Vol.7, 3) pp. 125-143

[xv] The Jane Goodall Institute, (2007). Teachers Guide for Primary 6 and 7. (Available from the Jane Goodall Institute, P. O. Box 462, Entebbe, Uganda.)

[xvi] Photo couresy of Sue Ball, JGI Environmental Education Workshop facilitator.