WWF to Construct a Natural Wetland in Zambia
12/30/99
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Title: WWF to construct a natural wetland
Source: Africa News Service
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: December 30, 1999
Lusaka - The World Wide Fund for nature (WWF) has launched a project
to construct a natural wetland to intercept water with nutrients
coming from the Nakambala Sugar Estates and other industries from
going straight into the Kafue river.
Kafue Partners for Wetlands Project in Zambia co-ordinator Nyambe
Nalumino in an interview yesterday said there were plans to design a
natural system in front of the farms that were located near the Kafue
Gorge dam with a view to kill the Kafue weed by removing the nutrients
from the water. He said nutrients from the sugar estates and other
farms could be absorbed by natural filters and purifiers such as reed
beds. He said the reed beds could provide raw materials for products
and create employment for local women.
The estates already has settling ponds to treat effluent from the
sugar mills while the wetlands would form the final purification
stage.
Nalumino said the ever increasing weed was feeding on the nutrients
coming from the sugar estates and the other industries around the
flats and there were no extreme dry periods to kill the weed.
He said the weed was a major environmental threat because it had
formed dense mats that were more than a metre thick, suffocating all
aquatic life and was threatening entering the turbines at the power
plant. Nalumino said the initiative to create a natural system that
would be used to remove nutrients from the water, was arrived at by
the local business farming community who were committed to fight the
weed.
"Traditionally, as environmentalists we've not worked very much with
the private sector as partners in action but this is the time that we
need to work together with them because they have money and they have
the capacity to achieve their objectives," said Nalumino.
He said Partners for Wetlands project were working to encourage
sustainable, productive use and conservation of the Kafue flats, and
was also developing opportunities for the diversification and
stability in the local economy.