ENVIRONMENT-SWAZILAND: Indigenous Trees Facing Extinction

By James Hall Reprint | | Print |

James Hall

MBABANE, Apr 8 2005 (IPS) - Can carved masks, toy drums and grass baskets pull Swazis out of the chronic poverty that grips two-thirds of Swaziland’s population?

Ntombi Dlamini, King Mswati’s mother, is backing a new enterprise that will centralise the diversity of wood carvers and handicraft makers, and give them access to customers worldwide via the Internet. But environmentalists warn there is a price to pay: a loss of indigenous trees and their habitats.

Swazi made handicrafts will be marketed worldwide under the trademark Swaziland Trading House, Ntombi Dlamini said at the launch of a web site devoted to indigenous products.

‘’We are cutting out the middleman, and allowing our artisans to deal with buyers directly through the Internet,” said Ntombi Dlamini, who by custom considered the tiny kingdom’s co-ruler.

Dumisani Dlamini, who directs the Swaziland Trading House project, noted that in the age of HIV/AIDS, when many male household heads have been incapacitated by the disease, it has been left to women to support families.

Like Swaziland, women, whose husbands have died of the disease, have also suddenly found themselves supporting families in AIDS-ravaged Southern African nations like Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique and South Africa.

Southern Africa holds two percent of the world’s population; but it has 70 percent of the world’s people living with HIV and AIDS, according to ActionAid, an international charity, whose head office is in South Africa’s commercial hub of Johannesburg. ActionAid is involved in creating awareness on the burden shouldered by women looking after people living with HIV/AIDS in the 13-nation Southern Africa Development Community (SADC).

In Swaziland and Botswana as much as 40 percent of the people are living with the virus, ActionAid says.

At the event, Dlamini said: ‘’It was mostly women who exhibited at the launch of the crafts project. This is consistent with our surveys that find women exclusively are the artisans to turn the wild grass they find in the mountains into woven mats and baskets. They are skilled in pottery making, pretty much dominating that field. We find fewer women as wood carvers.”

The women exhibited at the launch of Swaziland Trading House at the memorial museum dedicated to Mswati’s father, King Sobhuza, the founder of the modern Swazi state, about 15 kilometres east of the capital Mbabane.

Dlamini noted, ‘’This project’s aim is poverty alleviation. We have full support of government and the tourism industry. There is a growing worldwide demand for authentic indigenous handicraft.”

Swaziland’s handicraft industry has not yet become so commercialised that it produces a monotonous uniformity of product. It is still possible to find expressions of artistic individuality even in such mainstay tourist trinkets as key chains and ashtrays.

‘’Every piece I do is a masterpiece,” proclaimed Themba Shongwe, a carver of soapstone busts, which measure about 10 centimetres in height.

Dlamini said several Swazi handicraft companies already have web sites, and will link with the country’s main handicraft web site.

‘’These companies are already experienced at selling overseas. We find that a high proficiency of spoken and written English helps sales,” Dlamini said.

Raw materials are sourced locally, like a strong wild grass that grows in the mountains and when dyed is used in basket weaving. Craftspeople, who are usually impoverished rural residents, consider these materials as theirs free for the taking. They are unaware that conservation laws regulate the use of indigenous Swazi flora, much as game control laws restrict hunting of native species and provide stiff sentences for poachers.

‘’We applaud the artisan’s efforts to find livelihoods through their craft. But a balance has to be maintained between the demands of the marketplace and what nature can provide in terms of raw materials,” said an official with the environmental group Yongwe Nawe Swaziland.

Environmentalists have expressed concern that artisans are cutting down the last of Swaziland’s hardwood trees for use as carvings.

‘’These trees take more than a person’s lifetime to grow to maturity. It is illegal to cut them, but this stops no one. Once they are gone, the handicraft makers are out of business,” said environmentalist Sipho Ndwandwe.

‘’This disappearance of Swaziland’s fuel wood is imminent in some areas, while other areas face the extinction of all indigenous trees in a matter of years, based on the rate of current consumption and the new commercial exploitation of fuel woods,” said veteran nature conservationist Ted Reilly.

A study commissioned by Reilly classified the country’s indigenous trees as a non-renewable resource, many of which are in danger of extinction due to over harvesting. Endangered tree species include lead woods, knob thorns, bush willows (comretums), and umbrella trees (acacia nilotica).

‘’The ancient lead wood (combretum imberbe) in the Lubombo region has been carbon dated to be 1050 years old. Other mature trees of different species are well over 300 years old. For all intents and purposes, such ancient hardwoods can’t really be considered to be utilisable resources on a sustainable consumptive basis. They are just too slow growing to produce sustainable yields because they will not replace themselves as mature trees in the span of a man’s lifetime,” the report said.

The study found that when the value of the wood input is considered, the curios made from this product by Swazi craftspeople are ‘’grossly under valued and under priced”.

‘’As large tracts of the Kingdom are being rapidly and systematically desertified, a fuel wood crisis is developing for rural communities, and greater pressures are building on protected lands,” Reilly said.

‘’We are a vibrant, culturally rich and extremely friendly-country, and this is reflected in our products. From baskets to soap stone to hand-woven shawls, our products continue to find a niche in the world wide market,” Ntombi Dlamini.

Conservationists agree, but want sustainable, licensed of the country’s trees and other raw materials for curios.

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