Village under siege

Stephen Mpofu
THE global village is under siege and, tragically ironic, by itself.

This particular discourse is not about the Covid-19 world pandemic for which many people finger the devil as the probable mastermind, but about flagrant environmental degradation by humanity and for which we in Zimbabwe are also held accountable.

In acts akin to self-demolition people have, and continue, by their folly to foul the modus operandi of the sun which God created to aid humanity in its daily activities so that now more than at any other time in history, the ozone layer which shields Earth from the sun’s dangerous rays, has been rendered wafer-thin.

As a result of the damage caused, the globe has and continues to be dangerously heated up with food crops and pastures incinerated and Zimbabwe’s experiences with recurrent droughts and food shortages stand as ample proof of the effects of global warming.

Add to the above Cyclone Idai which hit Manicaland not so long ago, causing floods that devastated homesteads and schools among other properties. Recurrent floods continue to be reported in other parts of the world, especially in the United States of America.

Last year the US withdrew from the Paris Agreement on climate change — having given notice to that effect four years ago — with the then administration saying that the agreement would affect that country’s economy and put America at a disadvantage. After the new US president Mr Joe Biden took office in January this year, he announced that he would take America back to the Paris Agreement.

Which meant that for the many, many years until the new administration came into power, unmodified American factory chimneys and coal power plants have continued to spew toxic carbon gases into the atmosphere, thereby aggravating global warming as did other dangerous environmental activities in other countries with Zimbabwe not an exception. Here at home one can point to factories that are not modified and so spill carbon gases into the atmosphere.

Add to this is desertification as a result of wanton deforestation by people cutting trees for firewood to sell in urban areas. Trees absorb and sink carbon gases which have the cumulative effect of thinning ozone, thereby worsening global warming. Ironically these and other activities inimical to the environment and ultimately to people’s lives and health do continue in a country where a body exists to manage them and so check their spread and effect on human lives.

The Environmental Management Agency is that body in point. Yet even under its nose in Harare, the country’s capital city, people have built homes on wetlands while those who are supposed to take remedial action watch blurry- eyed at the sad development with the result that the Government has now ordered the destruction of those houses because they are wont detrimentally to affect the flow of water underground.

Surely, should not Ema because of the important role it plays not have been accorded no-nonsense environmental police powers to protect mother Zimbabwe?

Or are legislators jealous of Ema operatives enjoying such supreme authority? And those councillors who allow the degradation of wetlands in a country known for its very, very high literacy rating in Africa — is their mere functional literacy enabling them to read and write but not to see the implications of human activities beyond that?

In this communicologist’s humble opinion, Ema ought to be armed by the powers that be to read the riot act to industrialists whose activities, such as the spilling of carbon gases by unmodified factory chimneys to pollute the atmosphere as well as those responsible for coal power plants that also emit toxic gases into the atmosphere.

Similarly, because Parliamentarians from rural constituencies where rampant tree cutting, grass burning for fluffy new pastures for livestock do not seem to know the grave environmental consequences of those acts, Ema should zero in there to end the rot for the benefit of our people. The rampant siltation by gold hunters, some of whom smuggle the precious metal out of the country for personal gain should be stopped.

The just-ended 41st Independence celebrations have witnessed probably more calls than in previous festivities for every Zimbabwean to play a role in national development. It must therefore, be said with equanimity that the desired development as a way of emancipating our people further into a brave new future will remain merely rhetorical without a sound environment as also a sound base for such development courtesy of Ema.

Which also suggests that for Ema to remain on track dedicated, uninverted patriots must be in the driving seat in order to help prosper our economy for the good of all.