adminJeffrey Gogo Climate Story
AS the dry season sets in, a season in which wildfires literally go wild, a joint public-private sector committee has begun mobilising resources to ramp up actions that prevent fires doing just that – going wild. Wildfires can be greatly destructive. They kill humans, biodiversity and ecosystems, and may feed the vicious climate change cycle. On average, wildfires have burnt down one million hectares of forest and grasslands each year in the past decade, authorities say. Now, while the size of land cover destroyed by fire dropped 11 percent to 1,5 million hectares in 2015 from the year before, according to environment regulator, the Environmental Management Agency (EMA), the National Fire Steering Committee is looking to raise $155 000 between now and May-end to bankroll a campaign that aims to keep veld fires (aka wildfires) on the low.
The committee – comprising Government, international development agencies, NGOs, private sector, media and academics – has convened a series of meetings in recent weeks ahead of the national fire week, which is held annually every second week of May.
The fire week is a transmitter of consciousness to the public antenna of ignorance on the dangers of starting uncontrolled fires, and the benefits of preventing such. Most of the fires in Zimbabwe are started during farming activities, and this usually happens between now until August as farmers prepare land for the summer cropping season that starts around December.
Interim committee co-ordinator Wilson Chimwedzi of FireFight Trust, a local NGO, says the 2016 campaign galvanises actions from Government and its agencies like EMA and the Forestry Commission, with private sector strategies in a partnership that is expected to yield strong and sustainable results.
The committee has come up with a series of strategies to bring its message home – from physical interactions with communities to massive awareness campaigns through various media including bill-board advertising on major highways, and catch-them-young educational activities in schools.
More importantly, the plan targets to “create fire-adapted communities” that are not only equipped with information, but also the knowledge and skill to respond to dangerous veld fires more effectively, he said.
Through a project called ‘The One Million Fire Beater Initiative,’ Chimwedzi said the committee aims to construct fire danger warning signs on all major road networks, toll-gates, universities, schools, growth points, etc, and to train villagers and farmers in fire management or responsible burning.
Fire-beaters are people that beat the fire, literally, using simple or specialised tools to prevent the fire from spreading.
“The initiative seeks to promote readiness and preparedness in affected communities, by equipping them with appropriate equipment,” Mr Chimwedzi told The Herald Business, by email.
“This initiative will run for five years with an effort of making sure each household, farm, estate and plot has fire beaters. By making it an everyday tool the message of veld fires would have reached more than one million people.”
Vicious cycle
Fuelled by very simple factors such as recklessness actions from smokers that dispose burning cigarette butts, veld fires have become a perennial nightmare in Zimbabwe.
In 2015, 16 people were killed in such fires while land cover burnt dropped to 1,5 million hectares from 1,7 million hectares a year earlier, official data shows.
But independent estimates point towards a more worrying trend. According to Chimwedzi’s FireFight Trust, the amount of land under forests and vegetation razed by veld fires totalled 3,2 million hectares during the first nine months of 2015 alone.
This is twice as much as big compared to statistics provided by EMA for the whole of 2015.
The difference is striking, but indicate inconclusively that EMA, as the regulator, may be sleeping on the job, or that the FireFight Trust, as an independent entity, is merely speculative and alarmist.
Mr Chimwedzi said much of the burning occurred in Mashonaland West (1,3 million hectares) followed by Masvingo (656 000 hectares) and Mashonaland Central (400 000 hectares) – key agricultural regions that consist of large rural populations. Understandably, only 579 hectares were destroyed in Harare and 2 000 hectares in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s two largest cities.
However, based on the official 1,5 million hectares land cover decimated last year, wildfires generated the equivalent of 45 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (MtCO2e), a potent climate warming gas, according to calculations by The Herald Business.
This makes wildfires a potentially high source of emissions within the agriculture sector.
By itself, agriculture is the second largest emitting sector behind energy, accounting for 40 percent of the national total, according to the Environment, Water and Climate Ministry.
When fires burn they produce potent gases including carbon monoxide. Further, the soot from the smoke may cause serious health risks for communities, experts say.
And in a vicious ecological cycle, the fires decimating Zimbabwe’s forests and grasslands are seen exacerbating the water shortages that are fuelling the continued decline in agriculture output.
Zimbabwe is this year expected to produce less than half of its 1,2 million annual maize staple needs following a severe drought triggered by El Nino, leaving 4 million people or a third of the population starring hunger, authorities say.
“If we have permanent removal of forests (beyond recovery) we affect the water balance and reduce evapo-transpiration and eventually precipitation,” said Mr Terrence Mushore, a lecturer at the Bindura University of Science Education, in a text message.
“(The) overall effect depends on area affected and impact of the fire on the forest, permanent or temporary.”
Zimbabwe’s rainfall patterns have already been changing. In the last 100 years, rainfall has declined five percent in the northern parts of the country and 15 percent in the southern areas, particularly in Masvingo and Matebeleland, Meteorological Services Department’s Mr Tich Zinyemba confirmed in a previous interview.
The changes are projected to worsen in future.
According to the UN expert panel on climate change, rainfall is expected to sharply fall by 2080 across southern Africa, as temperatures soar 2 percent and maize yield decline by as much as 30 percent as early as 2030.
The projections expose the vulnerability of Zimbabwe’s agriculture sector to climate change, “especially water stress and flooding,” which “necessitates a focus on adaptation in order to climate proof and improve livelihoods,” the Climate Ministry said last September as it lobbied the UN for $35 billion in aid to help the sector cope.
As climates continue to change, ushering some of the most severe damage to humanity, ecology and livelihoods, every little action that prevents more dangerous changes is counting for much.
“Fire impacts are in every facet of our lives,” Mr Chimwedzi said.
“It affects our rainfall patterns, nutrition, our health, the quality of air, the environment, bee pollination and climate change. So it’s our duty to help in this cause.”
God is faithful.
Online Reporter