Cultural plus financial support crucial to saving wilderness
Copyright 2001, Environmental News Network
November 09, 2001
Conservation efforts will only succeed if there is economic justice, Professor Wangari Maathai of Kenya told delegates to the Seventh World Wilderness Congress meeting this week in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
Dried up river beds, the disappearance of vast herds of wildlife, and the deforestation of Mount Kenya are all signs of a community which has lost touch with its traditional wisdom, she said.
Maathai, founder of the Green Belt Movement, which has planted trees and developed tree nurseries across Kenya, is an environmental and political leader not only in her home country, but internationally. She finds inspiration for her environmental and political views from her early cultural experiences growing up as a Kenyan girl. An example of traditional wisdom was the reverence in which the wild fig tree was held by Maathai's mother's generation and those before her.
"As a girl I was taught that when I went out to gather wood, I must never touch the wood from the fig tree. The fig tree was sacred to our people because we used to offer sacrifices under them." As a result the fig trees grew to enormous size. Modern science is only beginning to understand the role these giant trees played in the ecology of the forests, said Maathai.
The roots of the giant fig trees, which stretched deep into the ground, broke up the subterraneous rock and played an important role in freeing up ground water. When the trees were cut, water problems followed. A stream in which Maathai played as a child dried up within 10 years of the trees being cleared for tea plantations. She said, "There is a clear connection between the destruction of the waterways and the fig trees."
Vast areas of Kenya's natural forests have also been cleared for the planting of nonnative exotic trees like pines and wattles, a practice that will lead to further problems, Maathai warned. "We are trying to stop the current government from expanding the plantations. The government sees indigenous forests as useless. However, if the current rate of destruction of the forests of our once-sacred Mount Kenya continues, more than 300 rivers will dry up in Kenya," she said.
"The big problem is that people have lost their cultural values," said Maathai. "People must be given space so that they can reclaim their cultures."
Cultural values must go together with strong financial support to ensure the preservation of Africa's shrinking wilderness.
The 700 delegates from 40 nations attending the World Wilderness Congress have welcomed the announcement of a US$1 million grant from the World Bank's Global Environment Fund to South Africa for the Baviaanskloof (Baboon's Ridge) Wilderness Area and another US$1 million grant to Angola to assist the Kissama Foundation work to rehabilitate Angola's Kissama National Park.
While presenting wilderness conservation in a global context, the delegates are concentrating on African wilderness protection. At the congress, Namibia announced new national wilderness legislation and proposed plans for a new Wilderness National Park. Namibia also proposed a three-nation, transfrontrier, desert wilderness, stretching from the northern Cape of South Africa all the way through Namibia into Southern Angola.
Two fundraising strategies are being created for African wilderness preservation. My Acre of Africa is an Internet-based, public fundraising strategy for southern African parks, protected areas, and local communities.
The African Protected Areas Initiative was announced at the congress. This effort brings together internationals agencies, funders, and NGOs to address the need for more funding for all African protected areas. It will be officially launched at Fifth World Parks Congress in Durban in June 2003.
To ensure wilderness preservation, the renewal of cultural values is essential, Professor Maathai said, but money is equally important. "Sixty-seven percent of people in the rural areas of Kenya earn less than a dollar a day. They are too worried about survival to care about the environment. We simply cannot conserve in an economic system based on exploitation."