Climate change may have led to declining water levels in Genda Village in Zambia’s Eastern Province, but Mercy Mwanza and the women here discovered there was a positive side to it and found a new way to earn a living.

Decreasing water levels in the local Lunkhwakwa River have created an opportunity for theenterprising women of Genda to start fishing. Credit: Ephraim Nsingo

Decreasing water levels in the local Lunkhwakwa River have created an opportunity for Mwanza and the other enterprising women of Genda and surrounding areas to get involved in fishing – something that they were previously too scared to do.

Mwanza told IPS that the village, which is located seven kilometres southeast of Chipata, the capital of Zambia’s Eastern Province, used to receive heavy rainfall. As a result the Lunkhwakwa, which also supplies the local water utility, was in flood most of the time, and the women here were too afraid to go near it.

But this is no longer the case.

“In the past, we could not go fishing like we are doing now. There was too much water in the river. But these days the water level is always very low, making it very easy for us to venture into the water and catch our fish,” Mwanza said.

The past five years has seen the once-mighty Lunkhwakwa River reduced to a small stream of water. According to the Chipata District Environmental Assessment Report, the area has received low rainfall since 2009 because of climate change.

The situation has been further compounded by pollution, encroachment and rampant erosion – which resulted in siltation around the river.

So when water levels in the river started declining last year, Mwanza, a single mother of three, was among the first women to start fishing. And this year, more women have joined her.

“This is the second year I have been fishing, but other women only started this year,” she proudly told IPS as she cleaned the breams she caught that morning. She and the other women here catch fish by lowering baskets into the river and waiting for the fish to become trapped in them.

The Lukhwankwa River has become the place to be for most women from Genda.

In the early morning, when the water levels are low, you will see eight to 10 women lowering their baskets into the slow-flowing current of water.

“It’s easy, but time consuming. And you need patience in order to have a good catch in your basket,” said Misozi Zulu, a Grade 9 pupil at Genda Basic School as she lowered her baskets into the river.

Afterwards the women take their catch to the market in Mchini compound, in Chipata. The women either walk there or they pay 30 cents for bicycle rides, which are undoubtedly the most popular means of local transport here.

“I feel happy when it does not rain heavily because I know that I will be able to make some money from fishing,” Zulu told IPS.

Previously the occupants of Genda were reliant on small scale farming to earn a living. Villagers used to reap bumper harvests of maize, but with the declining rainfall, maize yields have dropped with each passing year.

And for the women of Genda, basket fishing is becoming a new reliable source of income.

They are also assured of a constant supply of protein in their homes.

“As for us women, we can only fish when the river is like this and for us it’s good for now. This climate change is giving us something to better our lives,” said Bessy, another fisherwoman, who did not give her last name.

The income earned from fishing has enabled Mwanza and a few other women to open small tuck shops, known in Zambia as kantemba. The combined income from this and from fishing has enabled them to attain some financial independence.

They are able to pay their expenses and cater for their children’s needs, including sending them to school. Education in Zambia is not free, despite calls for the government to provide free primary school education and subsidise tertiary education.

“My husband is a fisherman and he has been fishing for more than 10 years, but he has never given me any money. Since I started fishing, I am now able to do what I want with the money I earn from selling fish,” Bessy said.

The local headman, 58–year-old George Mphanza, said that he was happy to see women engaged in fishing, even if it was on a small scale. He said being able to earn an income has affected the quality of the women’s lives.

“Half a loaf of bread is better than none, so this is good. You know, most men in this area are fishermen, but they are drunkards and they are failing to better their own lives. But with these women, I have seen a change,” said Mphanza.

But many here are fully aware that this source of income is not sustainable, as one day the river may dry up and fish will disappear.

Bessy said: “We don’t want this river to dry up because it is a source of income for us. We just want to take chance of the situation to better our lives, that’s all.”

James Phiri, the headmaster at a local school, is concerned too. “I came to this area seven years ago and we never used to cross this river during the rainy season, even using the bridge. There was always too much water. This is not good because in the next three to four years, this river will be no more,” he said.

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During the rainy season, and many weeks afterwards, home is never the best place to be for Miriam Banda. Until the end of 2008, she enjoyed living at her house in Kanyama, a high-density settlement bordering the central business district in Lusaka, Zambia’s capital.

“The problems started during the 2008/9 rain season, when the water started building up around my house like never before.” -Miriam Banda Credit: Ephraim Nsingo/IPS

Her small tuck shop was also a reliable source of income for her and her children. This is no longer the case, and she thinks only “some miracles” will change the situation.

“The problems started during the 2008/9 rain season, when the water started building up around my house in a manner we had never experienced before,” she told IPS.

“At first, we managed to block the water using pit sand packed into cement bags. The water levels kept on increasing until water started flowing into my house.”

The last blow was when she woke up one day to find her tuck shop washed away by the floods that had hit the impoverished southern African state.

“I could not believe it; everything was gone, just like that. The shop was my main source of income. I called my neighbours for help, but nobody could do much for me as they were also trying to contain the water at their own houses. Now I have become just helpless, but we are soldiering on.”

Banda, 61, had to face the reality of dammed up water left among dwellings after the floods. But when the government wanted to evacuate her and others to Independence Stadium in Lusaka, she would not agree without getting assurances that she would be allowed back at her house when the floods subside.

Another resident, Clara Siamwindi, said the situation appears to be getting worse with each year.

“In the more than 30 years I have lived in Lusaka, I have never seen such floods as we have been seeing of late. For me as a widow life has become very difficult, but I cannot move away from this place, except if they (government) build us new houses,” said Siamwindi.

Banda, Siamwindi and their neighbours in Kanyama do not view their plight as being a consequence of climate change but entirely as a sign of “divine anger”.

Changing rainfall patterns have resulted in an increase in the intensity and frequency of floods in Kanyama and neighbouring shantytowns of Misisi, Chawama and John Laing. Flooding has become a perennial problem in these areas, but the response from the government has been slow.

“Women and children are the most affected,” said Bornface Chileshe, a Kanyama resident who has committed himself to playing a leading role in mitigating the effects of climate change in Kanyama and the surrounding settlements. Chileshe is a psychosocial counsellor and a member of the ward development committee.

“Every year, especially in February when the floods are at their peak, this place becomes a little hell. We face all sorts of problems but it doesn’t seem anybody really cares.

“At that time of the year we also experience an increase in the outbreak of diseases such as diarrhoea, typhoid and malaria, but we cannot go to the clinic because even the clinic itself is flooded.” Because of poor drainage, the floods render the clinic and schools inaccessible.

“It is a sad situation. You can imagine what happens, especially to pregnant mothers when they need attention and cannot access the clinic,” added Chileshe.

Chileshe and another resident, Mariel Manda, told civil society representatives that they believe the money the government had spent to evacuate them to the stadium and to supply provisions was probably more than would have been spent to construct a better drainage system to support the community’s mitigation efforts.

Member of Parliament for Kanyama Gregory Chanda told IPS that climate change was having a “terrible” impact on women and children.

“This is posing a lot of challenges that the government should address. Some of the activities do not require too much money — just cooperation from government,” said Chanda, who belongs to the opposition Patriotic Front.

A newly published report on public expenditure shows that in 2009 – the year floods destroyed Banda’s tuck shop – the government allocated about four million dollars to the establishment and rehabilitation of the drainage system in Kanyama.

The Auditor General’s report confirms that the whole amount was released, but only about two million dollars were spent. The ministry of local government retained the rest.

Chanda told IPS that, as the area MP, he found himself in a “very difficult” situation especially given that it was a matter of public record that funds were released for construction of the drainage system.

He also alleged that “most” women left without livelihoods due to flood damage were now resorting to prostitution and other “uncouth” means to earn their livelihoods.

The chairperson of the Zambia National Campaign for Persons with Disabilities, Sefelino Bwalya, said the situation was worse for women with disabilities, especially women who are blind and those using wheelchairs to get around.