Meet the new UN Commission on Sust. Dev. chairman

Source: ZimConservation

Date: 23 September 2007

Author: Thabang Matebula

Not so many months ago, we joined progressive environmental interest groups and individuals in agonizing over the appointment of Zimbabwe, and in particular environment and Tourism Minister to chair the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development.

It is a statement of fact that Nhema’s tenure as minister of environment has seen all forms of plunder and resource rape visited on what was once a pristine ecological haven of variety in animal and plant species.

Environmental plunder is certainly not a new phenomena in Zimbabwe, but the mass razing down of trees and gold panners working twenty four hours a day to rape what was previously protected lands came with Nhema and the so-called land seizures of February 2000.

During this period, meat-hungry villagers, all sorts of poachers and self-appointed mineral prospectors moved into formerly protected lands and began laying it to waste through illegal, uncontrolled logging while Nhema looked the other way and imagined nothing was happening, after all, was didn’t we him say it was an agrarian revolution?

His indifference to plunder has been punctuated by wide-ranging allegations, including something to the effect that he was leading a rather poshy lifestyle courtesy of shady deals involves scarce US dollars belonging to the taxpayer. Apart from being a failed banker, the operations of his safari outfit operating out of Dete in the Hwange National Park have not been exactly above board.

History aside, after the argument on why the world was so blind as not to see the many illustrious portfolio and public conduct failures of the man they chose to lead the world into oblivion had subsided, I grudgingly agreed with the optimists who kept saying that his appointment would nudge him to take a closer look at the disaster he has been in this portfolio and hopefully make amends.

That has not happened. What has happened is that the Zimbabwean environment is under siege at the moment and everything – wood poaching, animal poaching, fish poaching, gold panning, illegal sand abstractions – has been sort of legalized, if you agree with me that turning a blind eye to vice by those who are supposed to snuff it out can be easily misconstrued for a de-facto legal status.

Since Nhema’s much trumpeted appointment to what state media here called ‘a coveted international post’ urban dwellers have been reduced to wood scavengers because this beautiful and progressive country, born out of the very precious blood of so many liberators we are constantly reminded to cherish, can no longer supply its people with electricity.

Equally desperate young men who should be working productively had ours been a normal country have taken up axes and work long shifts decimating acres of primary and secondary forest to meet the growing demand in the urban areas. The increasing rarity of wood has become an added incentive to the poachers who inflate their prices whenever a shortage hits the sprawling suburbs.

Under the nose of the man who shall lead this world into sustainable development, sand poaching has spiraled out of control, incentivised by a Diaspora community driven building boom that continues to defy the economic crisis. Since being appointed world president of sustainable development, Nhema has presided over huge fires that swept across the country and laid to waste over 400 000 hectares of forests.

The major highlights of his tenure since his appointment to the ‘coveted post’ would be incomplete without a mention of the recent fires that destroyed vast acres Matabeleland North. So as he prepares for what will certainly be a daunting task at the helm of the world, Nhema managed to keep his head high even as fires destroyed over 25 000 hectares of in the Ngamo Forest near Victoria Falls.

It also did not bother him that at about the same time, his ministry managed to do nothing as 3000 hectares of forest went up in flames at Gwayi Forest, which is part of the internationally acclaimed Gwayi Conservancy. Nor was he bothered when at nearly the same time, wild fires burnt down 2000 hectares of wood at Sikumi Forest.

Two weeks ago, the incoming world president of sustainable development succeeded again in doing nothing as a wildfires raged for three days uninterrupted, turning vast acres of the Matopos National Park into tinders. If the so-called world that voted Nhema into his next office have long eyes and ears, they may have already seen what awaits us all. I shudder to think that he will be in that post for a very long period of ten years because I know only too well that he did not need ten years to preside over the worst environmental degradation Zimbabwe has seen in ages. In-fact, he earned his stripes in just six and a half years. .

With all due respect, I think one reason why the UN Commission on Sustainable Development will remain ineffective and of no consequences to the downtrodden it was designed to uplift is that it does not emphasize on competence when it chooses its leaders. They also dig their heads into the sand whenever they are supposed to use common sense and see reason.

The story of environmental plunder in Zimbabwe has been said just as much as it has been photographed and circulated worldwide. It therefore leaves us wondering if whoever does the choosing of world presidents on sustainable development ever reads newspapers, not to mention the insurmountable task of checking the CVs of their candidates and prying into their track records before making appointments.

Any man who presides over and manages to do nothing as villagers invade conservancies and make meat out of all the animals they come across cannot and should not be allowed in any bodies to with environmental management. Had it not been for the fact that the ‘choosers’ are strange people who live in a yet-to-be discovered planet, they would surely have seen and heard most of the stories relating to the disastrous performance of their choice. If the same strangers from the strange planet had any credibility to tie to the process of determining the eligibility of candidates, they would have needed not to two but one visit to this country to see the highlights of what the world should brace for.

While his success in presiding over the recent fires has been noted, what has hogged the limelight is his response to the various fires that continue to rage sporadically across the country. He said government had banned what he termed “the burning of fires nationwide.”

This sounds weird to say the least, for the minister should know that three quarters of the rural populace depend on fire so much that they even use it to chop down forests to make way for farmland. Had it been true that he stays in Harare, Nhema would have known that all urban household in the suburbs of the same city are forced to make fire when the power goes, which it does with astonishing frequency.

In any case, ban the burning of fires and what next? Unless and until he wants to do so in person, I can safely suggest that his ministry has not even one fire inspector on the ground to catch those who ‘burn fires’, whatever that means. I also think the minister likes focusing on the wrong areas, which cannot even be confused with the environmental portfolio.

Beauty queens make a lot of men stir, but I am yet to find what Nhema’s interest in appearing on television entertaining some not so beautiful ‘beauty queens’ and semi-nude princesses who had just returned from baring their bodies to King Mswati while he searched for a new wife, whom he never fails to find each time his impoverished country holds the Reed Dance Festival in which processions of semi-nude would-be queens flash their bodies to catch the king’s attention.

So it was that I wondered if the minister was not in the wrong shoes since the Matopos fire was still raging. Unfortunately there is precious little we can do to change things in Zimbabwe now, so we shall concentrate on monitoring the achievements of the incoming chairman of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development and issue periodic updates for the benefit of those who are too far from Harare, and of course, the choosers up there.