adminSamuel Kadungure Farming Matters
ZIMBABWE perennially experiences the scourge of veld fires – blazes that spring out of control and become wild – thereby wrecking its scenic environs and chewing forests, animals and valuable assets whose worth cannot be quantified.
Human life, too, and valuable ecosystems are lost.
Zimbabwe has several laws aimed at preventing and criminalising veld fires – the Environmental Management Act, the Parks and Wildlife Act, the Forest Act and the Traditional Leaders Act – but veld fires remain a perennial problem.
The dry and hot winters, experienced over Zimbabwe, coupled with abundant tinder-dry grass fuels and ready sources of ignition ensure that fires are a regular feature of Savannah landscapes.
A joint study by the Department of Environmental Sciences, Bindura University of Science Education and Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Engineering, University of Zimbabwe, traces the prominence of the vice to the land reform programme.
This means that poachers and new farmers are major drivers of these uncontrollable infernos.
The study noted that prior to the land reform programme commercial farmers occupied about 16 million hectares, resettlement farmers 3,6m ha, small-scale commercial farmers 1,4m ha and State farms 0,1m ha.
“In 2000, the Government initiated a land reform programme to acquire 12,4m ha of the 16m ha in large-scale agriculture to create two new categories of farming subsectors, namely A1 and A2 farms. A total of 4,1m ha model A1 farms (average 5 ha), 3,5m ha model A2 farms (average, 318 ha per farmer) were established under the land reform programme.
“However, of late there has been an increase in the incidences of uncontrolled veld fires which have inflicted substantial damage to agricultural land, national parks, indigenous forests, commercial timber plantations, rangelands and communal grazing areas. The recent increase in fire incidences has been attributed to newly resettled smallholder farmers.
“The fast track land reform programme, which started in 2000, resulted in an upsurge in veld fire incidents due to poor land clearing methods by the more than 300 000 resettled small holder farmers,” noted the study published in 2013.
The major drivers include fires used for hunting, improving grazing, early burning or back burning to reduce the fuel load and negative impact of wild fires, creation of fire breaks, arson and smoking out bees during harvesting of wild honey.
Other deliberate causes include cooking, waste dumps, and carelessness such as throwing out lit cigarettes, fires to flush out game, fires to please the rain gods particularly when there is an impending drought and safari hunters who deliberately start or leave campfires unextinguished.
As a result burning has become the single largest contributor to greenhouse gases during the dry season in Zimbabwe and in the region.
More needs to be done to protect the environment by reminding the farmers and poachers of the long term effect of their deliberate actions.
Uncontrolled fires are a threat to the bio-physical, social and economic environment because of their trail of destruction and direct impact on all sectors of the economy.
The long-term effects of uncontrolled veld fires are a reduction of bio-diversity through destruction of flora and fauna, reduction of soil fertility, an increased erosion rate and decreased infiltration, which lead to less water for livestock, irrigation, fish, wildlife and people.
The infernos lead to increased loss of agricultural produce, reduced food availability for humans and animals, reduced vegetative cover and growth rate and loss of equipment.
The overall impact is household food insecurity.
Farmers end up losing livestock directly to veld fires. The burning chews pastures, leaving the surviving livestock without grazing, resulting in reduced returns to the farmers due to poor beef quality, low milk production and poor market prices for livestock.
At household, loss of shelter through veld fires has often left families traumatised.
Property loss, such as the destruction of a home or damage to personal goods, can be a source of grief while lack of shelter, means sleeping in the open with no food supplies and proper water and sanitation facilities. Loss of livelihoods sources may result in family disintegration.
Online Reporter