ENVIRONMENT: Southern Africa Ablaze with Manmade Bush Fires

By James Hall Reprint | | Print |

James Hall

JOHANNESBURG, May 23 2002 (IPS) - From Johannesburg to the Indian Ocean, with the same seasonal precision that brings the winter solstice to the Southern Hemisphere, the veld is ablaze.

“Fields and hillsides are being struck by fires that stretch five, ten, twenty kilometres in length, just a wall of flame,” reports Nelspruit, South Africa fire department superintendent Jason Nxumalo.

But unlike a natural phenomenon, these disasters are manmade. They began over a century ago in a shortsighted attempt to secure springtime grazing land for cattle, and they continue as a kind of tradition whose origin has been forgotten.

“People set fires, and they don’t even know why they do it,” says fire fighter Nxumalo. “They think, ‘It’s winter, the grass is dry, so it must be time to burn the fields’.”

The result is environmental damage that affects both developed areas and shrinking wilderness lands. Veld fires are the number one hazard faced each year by the Swaziland Emergency Services Department. In their wake are destroyed homesteads and industries, damaged nature reserves, and in some instances human fatalities.

Smoke pollution has been particularly bad in northeastern South Africa this week, according to the nation’s meteorological society. Satellite photos show a swath of smoke blanketing an area from Southern Zimbabwe and Mozambique south to Lesotho and east to the Indian Ocean. There has been no appreciable rain for weeks in the region. Grass is tinderbox dry. Meanwhile, the winds of winter have begun.

“In the native language of the Swazis, the months of June, July and August are named after birds whose nests are blown down by the winds of those months. This shows the people have always acknowledged these fierce winds,” says anthropologist Mduduzi Malambe.

Winter winds whip up fires, and spread them on an unimpeded course until there is no fuel left to consume, by which time hundreds of hectares or sometimes dozens of square kilometres have been transformed into scenes of blackened desolation.

George Murdoch, who came to Southern Africa in 1954 as an agriculture field officer and is now an amateur historian, says, “The Boer herders of South Africa in the 19th century used to burn the fields of the native Africans every winter. They did this so new grass would sprout with the first rains of spring. They would return with their sheep and cattle, which would graze on the grass.”

“But in the meanwhile, during the winter months, the African’s animals and the wildlife had nothing to eat. There was no regard given to the environment in those days. For some reason Africans assumed it was the thing to do, and they imitated starting fires,” he explains.

Wind-whipped veld fires can race along at five kilometres an hour, consuming homesteads in their way. Particularly vulnerable are the traditional homesteads of the poor, with thatched roof huts and wooden cattle kraals. Even a river is not a guaranteed firebreak. Wind-blown embers can travel hundreds of metres, to ignite new fires.

“Veld fires have always been part of Southern Africa,” says Linda Dobson, secretary for the Swaziland Natural History Society. “We know this because some indigenous plants will only germinate after they have been burned by fire. But the fires resulted from natural causes, most likely from lightning strikes.”

Dobson says the annual burning of virtually all the grasslands of Southeastern Africa is environmental overkill that is fundamentally changing the ecosystem.

Wildlife disappears as animals lose food supplies. If the first rains of spring are torrential rather than mild, soil will be swept off hillsides denuded because of loss of vegetation due to fire. Serious erosion results, as well as the pollution of streams that rural people and animals depend for vital water supplies.

Agriculture land is also lost to soil runoff. Veld fires have contributed to the desertification of marginal land that might be ill suited for cultivation, but could support a variety of indigenous plants and animals, according to Swaziland’s minister of agriculture Roy Fanourakis.

“There are laws against starting veld fires without first obtaining a chief’s permission,” says Fanourakis. In Swaziland, chiefs on behalf of the Swazi king supervise all natural resources. “Starting a veld fire is a serious form of arson. We try to educate people, but old ways are hard to counter.”

Gone are the great sheep herds of the past, but the veld fires are kept burning as if by force of habit.

Law enforcement officials in South Africa and Swaziland admit there is little they do to investigate the origin of a veld fire, unless the name of a culprit is supplied to them. This usually only happens when property damage occurs, says Leckinah Magagula, spokesperson for the Royal Swaziland Police Force.

In both countries, police personnel are too overwhelmed by other law enforcement obligations to watch over fields during fire season.

Last week, a veld fire gutted Swaziland’s main curio trading complex. Row after row of souvenir shacks constructed of “off cuts”, plank-length trimmings that are left over from lumber manufacture, were consumed, while workers scrambled to salvage flammable art works like masks and drums. A local hotel chain has contributed financially for the reconstruction of the complex, whose main customers come from its hotels.

Edith Simelane picks through the ashes of her stall, where nothing remains but twisted iron-roofing tiles once supported by wooden posts. Within an iron pot are the scorched remains of the paper money that had been her earnings on the day of the fire. She picks through the ashes to see if any of the bills are salvageable to take to the Central Bank for exchange.

“We all know these veld fires are dangerous, but you can see the people are still crazy about starting them,” she says.

This fire season could be the worst on record, predicts the Swaziland meteorological information service. If that proves the case, law enforcers may have no choice but to apply laws already in the books to control such senseless environmental destruction.