Vusumuzi Dube
Judith Phiri, Business Reporter
THE Environmental Management Agency (EMA) has called on farmers to desist from starting fires when clearing their pieces of land in preparation for the summer cropping season.
The agency said some of the fires were contributing to the enormous veld fires which are affecting the bushes and lives of a number of wildlife.
EMA environmental education and publicity manager Ms Amkela Sidange said fires started to clear land are spiraling out of control to cause veld fires.
“As people are clearing their land in preparation for the cropping season, they are starting fires to burn the stalks they would have cleared. The challenge is that most of the fires end up being uncontrollable resulting in veld fires which are even claiming lives,” said Ms Sidange.
“There was an incident of an elderly woman in Masvingo who died because of the fire she had started while clearing her fields.”
She said at the moment there was an increase in fire incidents owing to the high biomass since the start of the fire season.
However, the average hectarage lost to veld fires was actually low.
“This is because we have trained a lot of people so that they can be alert so that they are able to respond to veld fires on time. During the dry season we are also doing the monitoring of veld fires so that we are able to report on the status of fires in the country.”
As an agency, Ms Sidange said they are using geographical information systems (GIS) in fire monitoring and veld fire predictions, which has assisted them in the sense that the sooner the fire is picked, they quickly communicate with the people on the ground.
She said they were working with ward based Agritex officers whom they quickly send messages to so that they quickly flash the information and alert the community to be aware of where the fire is at.
“The agency has trained communities on fire management and we have got firefighting teams on the ground. We are also working again with the local leadership such as traditional leaders on how best can fires be quickly attended to,” said Ms Sidange.
Veld fires destroy plantations, crops and pastures.
In Zimbabwe, it is now commonly agreed that veld fires are a single significant threat to national economic recovery plans as they are destroying not only pastures necessary for the restocking exercise, but also vast plantations.
Online Reporter