Chronicle Editor
Robin Muchetu, Senior Reporter
THE Environmental Management Agency (Ema) says it is impressed with the progress made so far in veld fire management for the 2021 fire season which starts on 31 July.
Ema environmental education and publicity manager Mrs Amukela Sidange said although the agency was happy with the progress, their awareness campaigns were, however, hampered by Covid-19.
“The normal fire preparations have been hampered by the novel Covid-19 pandemic, but innovative ways have been employed to ensure improved fire management strategies are implemented as the country forges towards complying to the 2021 veld fire season theme. An extensive community outreach programme dubbed the ‘Accelerated community fire awareness programme’, has since been rolled out and is still ongoing, adopting a variety of approaches and strategies to raise public awareness and capacity on veld fire management,” she said.
The initiatives, Mrs Sidange said include commemorations, community meetings, training and demonstrations, talk shows and road shows.
She said priority areas in the special programme were veld fire hot spots of all the Mashonaland provinces as well as Manicaland.
“In addition, the Agency went on a massive production and distribution to the public of Information, Education and Communication (IEC) Material ranging from posters, brochures, flyers, stickers and fire assessment reports,” she said.
Ema said it has issued close to 900 Environmental Protection Orders (EPOs) to farmers, tenants, landowners and communities, compelling them to put in place adequate fire preventive measures on or before 30 June 2021.
“Also close to 2 800 community meetings and training have been done so far, and other several community engagements. To that end, several community initiatives towards fire prevention have been implemented such as biomass reduction through grass combing and hay baling, resulting in the harvesting of about 55 810 grass bundles and 81 739 hay bales respectively, and in the process collectively protecting an estimated 2 240 hectares of land from veld fires.
“Fire guard construction is also going on well and thrust is to ensure all land properties are adequately protected from veld fires during the dry season. The community awareness programme is ongoing throughout the country, and done in strict compliance to the recently announced Covid 19 guidelines, to ensure the country is adequately prepared to prevent any veld fire occurrences during the dry season,” said Mrs Sidange.
Online Reporter