Africa can regain lost environmental respect

02-Sep-2003: By GUY ROGERS

AFRICAN communities have lost their natural respect for the environment because of “commercialism”, but this loss is being recouped.

That’s the view of Rev Motlalepula Chabaku, who sits on the National Council of Provinces in South Africa and is a senior delegation representative at the 6th Conference of the Parties of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) here in Havana, Cuba.

In an interview with The Herald Rev Chabaku said the conference was important in that had helped orientate delegates on the position of desertification projects within the framework of sustainable develoment which would in turn help them communicate with their committees and the people they served.

Besides supplying support for new projects it had highlighted working initiatives, which had been an inspiration, she said.

Some of these working initatives in South Africa include conservation of wetlands, a move to small dam networks rather than large dams, the rooibos farming project in the Suid Bokkeveld in the Northern Cape which has already won attention from delegates here and a programme to conserve and unlock the potential of the Eastern Cape’s valley bushveld . A change of livestock has been achieved in some formerly subsistance communities to allow for value to be added to product with the establishment of cheese and tanning co-operatives and angora markets, at the same time easing the burden on habitat.

In a joint Lesotho-Swaziland-Botswana initiative, land is being revegetated with indigenous grasses to prevent the loss of topsoil.

Rev Chabaku said one of the links between these initiatives was that they allowed the beneficiary communities to get involved.

“Hand-outs de-humanise. People prefer to earn their money.”

A member of the ANC since 1949, the reverend studied divinity and worked in exile in the US before returning home.

She said African tradition revolved around belief in a supreme God and emphasised respect for the environment but this link had been seriously damaged by commercialism seen for instance in the uncontrolled plunder of resources by traditional doctors.

“We have to create God-guided people-centred societies. The respect that has been lost can be regained.”


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