ENVIRONMENT-SWAZILAND: Some Traditions Harmful To The Environment

By James Hall Reprint | | Print |

James Hall

May 12 2000 (IPS) - Formerly innocuous traditional practices in Swaziland are causing major environmental and economic problems today, with the result that a top company in the kingdom may be forced to shut down operations.

SAPPI-Usutu, a wood pulp manufacturer and one of the country’s largest employers, has suffered a 15 million US dollar loss because of the destruction, by fire, of its timber forests surrounding Bhunya, south of the capital Mbabane.

The fire starters are peasant farmers and residents of nearby communal Swazi National land, which is administered by chiefs appointed by King Mswati.

In particular, damage is caused by blazes set to smoke-out bees from their hives in an effort to obtain honeycomb.

The method is as old as the San bush people who once existed in the country’s Hhohho region, and who left an artistic legacy in cliff paintings adorning secluded hills and caverns.

The area’s member of parliament, Clement Dlamini, says, “There has been some talk that fires are deliberately set by disgruntled people, who maybe angry about retrenchments in the company’s work force.

We cannot discount economic sabotage. But the main culprits seem to be the bee chasers.”

Agrees Ben Nsibandse, Regional Administrator for the Hhohho Region, “An acceptable practice for our ancestors is proving too costly for today.”

A total of 1 800 people in his area are directly employed by the pulp company.

In Swaziland, where jobs are scarce, each worker supports a large number of dependents, from five to 10 family members each. MP Dlamini frets about what will happen to the economic infrastructure supported by the company’s operations if it were to shut down.

“The teachers at the town school, the nurses at the clinics, the transport operators, the shop keepers, all will be out of work from the ripple effect caused by a company closure.”

Bhunya, nestled in an area where there is little else but hills planted with the company’s pine trees, is a one company town.

As one resident succinctly put it, “If SAPPI closes, this place is a ghost town tomorrow.”

The Times of Swaziland, alarmed at the prospect of large job losses in a national economy that already suffers from 45 percent unemployment, according to the finance ministry, has suggested the radical step of eliminating bees from Swazi National Land around Bhunya, to remove the temptation to set fires.

“The ecological damage from such a ‘solution’ would be bad,” the paper editorialised, “but not as severe as a burned-out area where bees would be destroyed anyway.”

Agents from the agriculture ministry may bring in insecticide to kill bees if efforts fail between the company and area chiefs to preach the fire safety message to residents.

SAPPI has attempted to do so for two years, when it introduced an innovative programme to start peasant farmers out as tree growers themselves. Financed by the company, co-operatives planted trees that in 17 years time will be ready for harvest for pulp.

The scheme gives residents a stake in the preservation of the company and their environment, and will raise their standard of living as they graduate from subsistence farming to their first cash crop.

But this past year’s fires in the company’s 56 000 hectare forest have been a set back. Government is also concerned. Wood pulp is a major foreign exchange earner for Swaziland.

Production is up from 155 000 tonnes in 1996 to an estimated 200 000 tonnes this year.

Regional Administrator Nsibandse feels the potential losses of jobs and environment are inducements to curb old habits that might have been harmless when Swaziland was an isolated, largely unpopulated area.

“Other habits, dating from the 19th century, such as burning winter grass to facilitate the growing of spring grass, must also be stopped,” he said.

The destructive practice of setting fire to the veld began when Boer sheep herders from South Africa drove their flocks into Swaziland to graze during the winter.

They set fires to clear hills in the hope that an occasional winter rain shower would produce sprigs of new grass.

Inertia has kept the practice alive decades after the last flock of sheep roamed the hills by Swazis who now seek to feed their cattle.

The agriculture ministry reports that Swaziland has grazing land to feed 500 000 cows, but the cattle population now stands at 650 000 hungry beasts competing for fodder. Some of the fires that have devastated the Usutu timber forests and annually cause property damage elsewhere where set by cattle owners clearing brush.

Laws exist to punish anyone setting a veld fire without a chief’s permission, but these have never been enforced. The prospect of the pull-out of one of the country’s oldest companies, which began operations in Swaziland in 1949, is prompting government authorities and traditional leaders to reassess the impact of cultural practices harmful to the environment.