A former piece of cropland now a wastelandSwaziland says global warming is the key culprit in encroaching desertification, which is causing habitable areas and croplands to disappear and exacerbating the impoverished country's food security crisis, rather than looking closer to home for the reasons.
"We are told that because of climate change, semi-arid areas like in the lowveld region of Swaziland will become even more dry. Hence, the need to develop coping strategies for these changes," said environment minister Thandi Shongwe at a rally the capital, Mbabane, on Friday.
According to a new report by the Swaziland Environmental Authority, about 10 percent of the southern Shiselweni and eastern Lubombo regions have become marginalised since the 1990s, due to persistent drought, population pressure on available land and water resources, and an overabundance of grazing cattle - all factors that have contributed to land degradation and soil erosion for decades.
Shongwe said the country was suffering the effects of pollution by industrialised nations, while tiny Swaziland, with 30,000 registered motor vehicles for a population of one million and negligible industry, was not a large contributor to greenhouse gases.
"What I want to point out is that prosperity built on destruction is not prosperity at all, but rather a temporary reprieve from tragedy; without major policy changes we face a future filled with danger," Shongwe said, calling for talks between developing nations and the developed world to reverse the effects of global warming on countries like Swaziland.
Some environmentalists felt other factors contributing to desertification in Swaziland could be dealt with immediately, but said government lacked the political will to do so.
The king holds all land in trust for the nation, which is allocated as communal land by traditional leaders. "Chiefs settle their new subjects in inappropriate places. The population is growing so much that people are located in marginal land unsuitable for farming: they destroy the soil with repeated monocropping of maize, and eliminate all the forests and indigenous trees for firewood," Amos Nsibandze, an environmental activist, told IRIN.
He said the government has also been unwilling to put limits on the large number of cattle roaming the countryside. "The traditionalists say cattle are sacred in Swazi culture, and you cannot interfere with a Swazi man's cattle."
Swazi cattle are not confined to feedlots, but are found in small herds tended by small-scale farmers on Swazi Nation land. According to a Swaziland Central Bank report, the cattle population of 800,000 greatly surpassed grazing capacity, which could only support an estimated 600,000 head of cattle.
Shongwe warned that the country could no longer take a :business as usual" approach to environmental degradation, saying, "Firstly, we have to understand that we have a finite resource. In order to survive under these harsh conditions, we need to understand that water harvesting is not only essential, but water conservation is very critical."
Construction has begun on a pipeline to carry irrigation water from relatively full dams in the north to relieve chronic drought conditions the south, but environmentalists caution that this will not mitigate soil erosion until farmers are taught proper cropping techniques and environmental awareness is instilled in the countryside.
Nsibandze pointed out that "we also need to find alternative fuel sources to indigenous trees, before those are all gone".
Reproduced with the kind permission of IRIN
Copyright IRIN 2006
Photo: Copyright James Hall/IRIN
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