E-SLIP FACILITATES A PARTICIPATORY APPROACH TO RANGELAND MANAGEMENT

 

Grazing areas are fast depleting and deforestation has adversely 
affected the already low rainfall pattern of Chirundu

As the effects of climate change continue to reveal themselves in the livestock sector, rural farmers are being compelled to make aggressive efforts towards enhancing their resilience and ultimately protect their livelihoods.

In valley areas such as Chirundu, a grim scenario exists which continues to hinder farmers’ capacity to grow their livestock population most especially cattle.

The Enhanced Smallholder Livestock Investment Programme is a government intervention under the Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock. The Programme which is jointly financed with the International Fund for Agriculture Development(IFAD) aims to improve the sustainable production and productivity of rural livestock farmers. One of E-SLIP’s interventions has been facilitating the revamping of existing rangelands through over sowing of forage and pasture so as to enhance available grazing areas for livestock among other things.

E-SLIP has been facilitating the over sowing of 35 rangelands around the country through the establishment of Rangeland Management Committees that are comprised of farmers who are located in areas that are directly dependent on the rangelands.

However, these interventions have been progressing at a concernedly slow pace. A lead cause of this has been the indiscriminate degradation of the environment by communities themselves. As such, E-SLIP has been facilitating stakeholder meetings in its targeted rangeland sites aimed at engaging traditional leaderships to help strengthen the enforcement of by-laws on rangeland management.

Rangeland management involve interventions that are predominantly focused on vegetation which requires the sustainable use of basic resources such as soil, water, trees and plants as well as wildlife.

When Rangeland Committees were being established, bylaws surrounding the management of rangelands were established to support the efforts that communities would be implementing. However, weak enforcement of these laws has significantly stalled progress.

Roy Habasimbi is a headman for Siyabasimbi village in Chirundu. He is also a member of the Sikoongo Rangeland Committee and is in charge of overseeing the conservation of trees within Sikoongo rangeland. He bemoaned the indiscriminate cutting down of trees that is hampering efforts to revamp the rangeland.

“People want money but the only source of money is cutting trees to make charcoal…now for us rangeland committees who know what we want to achieve, this is a challenge because these people- whilst we’re stopping them from cutting trees – we must give them something to do,” Mr. Habasimbi explained.

Roy Habsimbi is a village headman and active 
member of Sikoongo Rangeland Committee

He added that through the rangeland committees, communities could improve the availability and access to water and probably lure people who are in the charcoal business towards farming activities.

Chirundu District is a valley area renowned for its high temperatures and low rainfall – a situation which has worsened due to destructive human activities such as indiscriminate tree cutting.

Darius Dayurah who is headman for Mapoto village elaborated that the impact that the cutting of trees has had on the rainfall pattern of Chirundu over the years.

“I grew up here – we used to have a good rainfall pattern where my father would harvest between 400 to 700 bags of maize in this area and we had a lot of trees at that particular time. Nowadays we only have few days of rainfall…the cutting of trees has really affected us like this,”

In 2019 when the area suffered a short rainy season, farmers in Chirundu lost a significant number of cattle that were dying of dehydration as boreholes dried up earlier than expected due to a short rainfall period.

Darius further explained that existing by-laws state that the culprits of tree cutting must be subjected to fines and planting 5 trees per every tree they cut. However, there was need for support from law enforcement institutions to aid in ensuring that.

E-SLIP’s Forage Development Specialist, Bwalya Nkole, who is in charge of overseeing the Programme’s rangeland management interventions explained that the stakeholder engagements that E-SLIP was facilitating in each of their rangeland sites targeted law enforcers at community level such as village headmen and head women to participate in the process of reviewing existing by-laws and contribute towards their enforcement.

“We have seen that there are a lot challenges being experienced in the rangelands such as over grazing; we have seen that rangelands are being encroached… disturbing the natural habitat by also disrupting the natural resources that are found in the rangeland. So this has an impact on the nutrition of the animals too,” Ms. Nkole explained.

Rangeland management involves the sustainable use of resources for both human and animal benefits. Thus challenges such as encroachment, indiscriminate tree cutting and over grazing inhibit the sustainable use of the rangelands.

Ms. Nkole explained that in response to these challenges and others outlined by the farming communities, there arose the need to review existing by-laws and put into place action plans that communities themselves to enforce.

“We have seen that from the time the rangelands were established in 2019, there has been a gap between the rangeland committees and local traditional leaders as well as the district authorities. By-laws are there but there is non-enforcement,” Ms. Nkole noted.

This gap has entailed that the enforcement of by-laws most especially by local communities has been hard to manage.

Chirdunu District Livestock Officer under the Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock - Lloyd Mweemba - has been playing a key role in facilitating the establishment of rangeland committees in the district. He explained that the communal nature of the rangelands compelled the need for a participatory approach in strengthening existing by-laws affecting rangelands.

“E-SLIP came with a very good idea that these grazing areas of Chirundu should be improved and this had to begin by looking at who are involved? The traditional leaders, the [communities] themselves, and of course us in the [Ministry] and other departments such as the Council and Forestry,” Mr. Mweemba explained.

He added that challenges such as indiscriminate cutting of trees and bush burning needed a united approach when enforcing punishment and thus engaging traditional leaders into discussions concerning the rangeland committee by-laws was an avenue to get to stimulate the communities’ involvement in rangeland management.

Rural farming communities are becoming more enlightened to the effects of climate change now that they are feeling the direct effects of them. Thus through the existing rangeland committees, it is hoped that farmers can play a more active role in conserving their environments and buy into the interventions that are being made to conserve and prudently use their natural resources.