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WETLANDS in Zimbabwe are under serious threat from depletion. This is sad to be a result of years of wanton disregard of the areas that are an important water source and vital for ecological balance. With indications that only 21 percent of the 1 271 wetlands countrywide are still in their natural state, the Environmental Management Agency (EMA) is currently crafting guidelines for the effective management of these pieces of land. Our reporter Sharon Munjenjema (SM) spoke to EMA’s Environmental, Education and Publicity manager Mrs Amkela Sidange (AS) on the measures being taken to protect wetlands. We publish excerpts of the interview.
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SM: We understand EMA is in the process of establishing guidelines for the strict management of wetlands, can you shed light on this initiative?
AS: We are lobbying for what we call National Wetlands Utilisation Guidelines. A consultant has been brought on board and even consultation of grassroots communities has been done.
We are now at a stage where draft proposals are being circulated so that they can be endorsed.
We are doing this so that we agree, as a nation, on how we want to deal with our wetlands.
The new thing we will see in the guidelines, when they are officially adopted, is that there will be harmonisation of processes in the use of our wetlands.
Consultation was done across the board from village or ward level to national level.
The consultation tapped into all the knowledge systems that can be used in the management of wetlands.
Hence, whatever is coming in the guidelines is coming from all levels of society.
SM: Which areas are most affected and when do you expect the new regulations to be in place?
A: We are trying to create enablers in the form of policies that can assist in the preservation of wetlands.
At the moment we are trying to lobby for the gazetting of a wetland map for Harare and Chitungwiza because in Chitungwiza, only, out of all the 920 hectares of wet-lands area, we are only left with 189 hectares that has not been interfered with.
In Harare, 60 percent of wetlands have been interfered with. We cannot continue operating as if it is business as usual because we are heading towards a crisis.
As EMA, our target is that by the end of the second quarter, we want to have finished everything to enable the gazetting of wetlands maps.
Our job is simply to enable an environment for gazetting of the maps.
We have done the ecological assessment to identify all the sensitive areas that are there in Chitungwiza.
We have done the same with Harare as well. Now we are doing stakeholder consultation for residents to include their input into the maps so that we are in agreement of the wetlands that are there.
SM: What does gazetting wetland maps entail?
AS: When we gazette an area, it paves way for the application of any protection measures that can apply to such an area.
City and town councils will now know that this area has been marked as a wetland and therefore, should not be interfered with.
No construction or structural development works can take place there. We are ring fencing them.
Most of the (city or municipal) by-laws and policies being used in local authorities are now outdated.
Some of them were passed as far back as 1911, several years before EMA came into existence.
We have landholders who got title deeds to a piece of land, for example in the 1950s before EMA existed. These land holders may be harbouring a wetland, but they are protected under proprietary rights and can use the land for other purposes other than preserve it.
That is why we are in the process of lobbying for such pieces of land to be bought back and removed from private ownership so that they become State land.
SM: EMA has lost a number of court cases against landowners harbouring wetlands. How successful do you think you are going to be in buying back land from such people?
AS: The success will come from stakeholder collaboration and stakeholder involvement in the management of wetlands.
We are moving away from dealing with wetlands from an individual organisation perspective where EMA looked at wetlands from the legislative enforcement side while local authorities only concentrated on who owns the land.
Online Reporter