THE ENVIRONMENT IS CENTRAL TO FIGHTING POVERTY IN AFRICA

By Wangari Maathai and - - Reprint | | Print |

This column is available for visitors to the IPS website only for reading. Reproduction in print or electronic media is prohibited. Media interested in republishing may contact romacol@ips.org.

NAIROBI, Apr 30 2005 (IPS) - While the new focus on Africa\’s development is welcome, the essential role of the environment is still marginal in discussions about poverty, writes Wangari Maathai, the 2004 Nobel Peace Laureate and Kenya\’s Assistant Minister for Environment and Member of Parliament. In this article, Maathai writes that while we continue to discuss these initiatives, environmental degradation, including the loss of biodiversity and topsoil, accelerates, causing development efforts to falter. Without better management of resources the achievement of the MDGs, especially the elimination of poverty, could easily remain a dream. Africa lags behind other regions in progress toward the MDGs. If we do not acknowledge that the environment is central to sustainable development and ending poverty, we run the risk degrading the resource base on which future development depends. To make poverty history, we have to put the environment at the centre of policy and decision-making.

The future of the African continent is again on the world’s agenda. The United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the United Kingdom’s Africa Commission, and a multitude of citizen and civil society efforts are among initiatives that are addressing the problems of Africa’s poorest people.

This new focus on Africa’s development is welcome. However, the essential role of the environment is still marginal in discussions about poverty. While we continue to debate these initiatives, environmental degradation, including the loss of biodiversity and topsoil, accelerates, causing development efforts to falter. Without better management of resources, the achievement of the MDGs, especially the elimination of poverty, could easily remain a dream.

My own country, Kenya, offers a good example. The forests of Mount Kenya, on the Equator, and the Aberdare range, on the eastern edge of the Rift Valley, are the source for hundreds of tributaries that pour into the Tana River, Kenya’s largest. This river provides drinking water for millions of Kenyans in the major urban centres. The forests function as water collectors, receiving and storing rainwater in underground reservoirs. Many sectors, including industries, agriculture, tourism, livestock, and energy depend on them.

Some sixty years ago, the mountains were clear cut and replaced with monoculture plantations of pines and eucalyptus for commercial use. To manage these plantations cheaply, the administration introduced the shamba system, where farmers were allowed to cultivate food crops in between tree seedlings. It was assumed, that as the farmers tended their crops, they would also tend the seedlings, thereby reducing the costs to the government.

Unfortunately is not always well understood that this system can destroy the capacity of natural forests to provide critical forest services, such as the replenishment of underground water levels, sustaining the volume of water in rivers, providing habitats for extensive biodiversity, and controlling rainfall patterns. After many years of forest abuse, these services fail: biodiversity disappears, rivers dry up, floods become common and very destructive, soil erosion increases, land degrades, desertification intensifies, rainfall and crop production plummets.

Small-scale farmers working degraded lands are among the poorest people in Kenya. For them, hunger is a common phenomenon. These conditions undermine prospects for eradicating extreme poverty and hunger (MDG 1) and reducing child deaths (MDG 4), the roots of which are often found in hunger and poor nutrition. At this time, aid in the form of food, clothing, and shelter from the government or donor agencies become needed. Under such unsettled conditions, communities demonstrate the typical pictures of desperation and hopelessness. Yet all this could be avoided by managing the forested mountains more sustainably.

This year in Kenya, the long rains have been late and light, preventing most farmers from planting their fields. Three million people, nearly 10 per cent of the population, now depend on government food aid. About 60 per cent of Kenya’s population is rural, and most men and women still earn their living as farmers.

After the loss of forests, nothing remains to hold the soil back, and massive amounts of topsoil are lost. Combined with low water levels, large deposits of soil in dams across the Tana River have challenged the government’s ability to generate sufficient hydropower. As a result, Kenya has had to buy power from neighbouring countries to expand rural electrification and industrial development. In so doing, it sacrifices other development priorities like combating HIV/AIDs, malaria and other diseases (MDG 6) and improving maternal health (MDG 5). Shortages of electricity also mean that poor people in rural and urban areas use charcoal (from trees) for energy, furthering deforestation and limiting prospects that MDG 7, ensuring environmental sustainability, will be achieved.

Finally, destruction of Kenya’s forests also affects tourism, a major source of foreign exchange. As animals’ habitats are compromised, they search for food and water in other areas and are often killed by poachers or people defending themselves and their livelihoods.

The organisation I founded, the Green Belt Movement, has launched a pilot project in partnership with the Kenyan government to restore degraded forests and open lands with native trees and vegetation. Local women are growing indigenous tree seedlings and planting them in the Aberdares forest. For each seedling that survives, the women earn about USD 0.35. This money can be used for school uniforms, nutritious food, or health care for themselves and their children.

Africa lags behind other regions in progress toward the MDGs. If we do not acknowledge that the environment is central to sustainable development and ending poverty, we run the risk of missing all the MDGs and further degrading the resource base on which future development depends.

For Africa it is necessary not to forego the promise to future generations. To make poverty history, we have to put the environment at the centre of policy and decision-making. That is what will make the difference.(END/COPYRIGHT IPS)