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Protecting environment is everyone’s duty

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THE 2014 curtain closes down on our environmental page with President Robert Mugabe’s launch of this year’s National Tree Planting Day ceremony at the just ended 6th ZANU PF National People’s Congress in Harare.
In a year that has been marked with significant strides in the environment and tourism sector such as the Zimbabwe-Zambia univisa, political commitment at the United Nations on advancing climate change issues, President Mugabe challenged tobacco farmers to embrace reforestation programmes because, ‘the country would rather have no tobacco than have deserts and no trees’.
The tobacco sector has been fingered due to its huge negative impact on the loss of forests and trees as many tobacco farmers cut down trees for curing.
Due to their higher burning calories, indigenous trees are usually targeted by tobacco farmers.
Besides tobacco farmers, many households cut down trees to use for various household purposes such as cooking and infrastructure development.
With other problematic issues such as veld fires which have ravaged the country and resulted in the loss of property worth millions and improper use of wetlands, it is important for people to understand that without flora and fauna in these forests, trees and wetlands there would simply be no tourism to boast about in Zimbabwe.
President Mugabe’s speech (highlighted below) therefore encourages each of us to see the importance of the environment in ensuring sustainable development of our country.
President Mugabe said:
We commemorate this year’s National Tree Planting Day under the theme, ‘Forests for Food Security and Nutrition’.
The theme is in line with the United Nations General Assembly’s declaration of the year 2014 as the International Year of Family Farming and secondly as the Food Security and Nutrition cluster of our economic blueprint, Zim-ASSET.
The United Nations declared 2014 as the International Year of Family Farming, with the aim of raising the profile of family and smallholder farming by focusing world attention on its significant role in eradicating hunger and poverty, providing food security and nutrition, improving livelihoods, managing natural resources, protecting the environment, and achieving sustainable development, particularly in rural areas, where about 70 percent of our people reside.
As I officially launch the tree planting season annually on the first Saturday of December, the nation is called upon to reflect on the importance of trees and forests to both the environment and livelihoods. In addition to the economic and social benefits of forests, ecological services such as watershed protection are of equal if not critical importance, hence the setting aside of some areas in the Midlands and Matabeleland North as gazetted forests, to protect the water catchments of rivers such as Sanyati, Gwayi and others.
In recognition of the importance of protecting forests, Zim-ASSET has provided for the conservation of catchment areas under the Food Security and Nutrition cluster where the Ministry of Environment, Water and Climate has been challenged to come up with a comprehensive veldt and forest fire management framework as well as updated reports on ecosystems and preservation strategies.
Allow me to reiterate the important role that trees and forests play in sustaining our livelihoods. The food that mankind get from tree leaves, fruits, seed and nuts, roots and tubers, mushroom, honey, wild animals and insects contribute to food security. They also provide a wide range of goods and services, including firewood, construction material, medicines, fodder for livestock and wild animals, shelter and environmental protection among others.
My Government remains committed to the United Nations’ four global objectives on forests which seek to: reduce the loss of forest cover through sustainable forest management; increase the area of sustainably managed forests, including protected forests; reverse the decline of official development assistance and to enhance forest–based economic, social and environmental benefits including by improving livelihoods of forest dependent people.
In that regard, Government will continue to support national reforestation programmes and will ensure that the tree growing and conservation programme is accorded the priority it deserves. While appreciating the importance of increasing area of cash crops such as tobacco, I am also wary of the impact tobacco growing has on trees and forests, contributing to a great extent to the 330 000ha loss in forest cover per year.
We want our farmers to take advantage of the opportunity to grow such crops which was previously a preserve of the few land resourced white commercial farmers, in a manner that does not lead to the exhaustion of our forests, for that would result in tobacco farming grinding to a halt. Remember our trees are not just for the provision of firewood, as they have other innumerable socio-economic and ecological functions to serve.
Today I want to repeat what I said in my 2014 Independence Day speech, that we would rather have no tobacco than have deserts and no trees. I want to urge all the farmers who have embarked on tobacco growing to actively participate in reforestation programmes that we have put in place through the Ministry of Environment, Water and Climate.
This year’s Tree of the Year is Bolusanthus speciosus, commonly known as Mukweshangoma or Mupaka in Shona, Impaca or Umbambangwe in Ndebele and Tree Wisteria in English.
The tree is indigenous to southern Africa where it is widespread in wooded grasslands, often occurring in association with Mopane and some Acacia trees.
The tree wisteria wood, which is highly sought after by carpenters and wood carvers, makes excellent furniture. Given time and effort, the tree wisteria could replace the Jacaranda trees from Harare streets with indigenous purple blooms instead.
As we launch the 2014/15 tree planting season, I want to urge communities and their leadership- Chiefs, Headmen, Village Heads, Councilors and all political and civic leaders to make sure that their areas have been reforested and the trees looked after.
Let us give our children this message of tree planting and conservation so that they embrace the culture as they grow.

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