SOENETSA

State of the Environment Reporting Network for Southern Africa
SOENETSA

SOENETSA NEWSLETTER

Vol. 1 No. 2, June 2000

Editorial: SOE reporting can benefit from a protocol on regional environmental information exchange

While many governments in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region have been producing state of the environment (SOE) reports especially after the 1992 Earth Summit, the absence or inadequacy of the legal and institutional framework has meant that national reporting is irregular and not coordinated at the regional level. Regular reporting at national levels would feed into both the SADC regional and global level needs.

National SOE reporting processes throughout the region require a sound legislative base in order to enhance their usability as a tool for sustainable development. Such a base can ensure both financial and technical commitment to their production. When instituted in the appropriate policy structures, this can to some extent lead to guaranteed use of the reports by target audiences, including policy makers at various levels.

Reports to date have been produced within organisations with the national mandate to produce them, but with scanty legal and policy backing. Legislation in South Africa and Zambia identifies regular SOE reporting as important for development. However, as early as 1972, the international community through the Stockholm Declaration (95th recommendation of the Declaration) requested that the Secretary General of the United Nations (UN) make arrangements for the preparation of the state of and outlook for the environment using national reports.

Maybe more important for the moment is a binding framework convention on the environment at the SADC level. Such a framework, like the global United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), can be structured in such a way that other binding protocols can be derived and implemented by parties to the convention. An example of such protocols could include one on environmental information exchange policy. Regular SOE reporting could be part thereof, and could supply the vital information regarding areas needing policy attention.

A SADC Environment convention would be unique in that there is no provision for such an agreement under the SADC Treaty. The Convention, well overdue, can also be important as a form of monitoring for sustainable development, and ensuring that development will proceed with mitigated adverse effects on the natural environment.

Tendayi Kureya

Network Moderator

Landmark SOE Report Published

By Tendayi Kureya

A landmark publication on reporting the environment, the State of the Environment in the Zambezi Basin 2000 has been published. The report "marks the first time that an assessment of a single ecosystem has been undertaken and reported upon in southern Africa", notes the introduction to the 13-chapter, extensively researched document.

In his foreword to the report, President of Mozambique and current Chairman of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), His Excellency Joaquim Chissano highlights the importance of natural resources to the nations in southern Africa as "critical to regional growth, economic integration, and collective economic independence in an increasingly globalising world."

The Zambezi River Basin links eight SADC member countries, is home to some 40 million people, (almost the size of the population of South Africa) and "best represents what we have in SADC in terms of our natural capital", the President also noted.

The report was published after a two-year environment assessment partnership project involving the SADC Environment and Land Management Sector (ELMS) and Water Sector Coordinating Unit (WSCU), World Conservation Union Regional Office for Southern Africa (IUCN-ROSA), Zambezi River Authority (ZRA) and the Southern African Research and Documentation Centre-Musokotwane Environment Resource Centre for Southern Africa (SARDC-IMERCSA). Funding was provided by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).

A consultative process was applied involving a regional workshop attended by various stakeholders working hands on with day-to-day environmental issues. Stakeholders had a direct input into the supporting information tools which included factsheets, newsletters, posters, a website, and a database of experts.

Commenting on the overall exercise that led to the production of the report, Elton Laisi, Project Coordinator for the initiative based at SARDC-IMERCSA said: "The exercise was very strenuous, but invaluably worthwhile, and would not have been possible without everybody's input."

Munyaradzi Chenje, Director of SARDC-IMERCSA and editor of the document echoed the same sentiments in the editorial to the report, and added that the State of the Environment in the Zambezi Basin 2000 is "a comprehensive report borne out of collaboration among many different experts spread across in different countries in the SADC region in general.”

The report presents the pressures, current states, impacts and responses in issue areas namely physical features and climate, water and wetlands, biodiversity, agriculture, industry, energy, tourism, pollution, poverty, and gender. Separate chapters address regional cooperation and trends and scenarios.

The report, together with its English and Portuguese summary will be distributed widely soon, and plans are underway to make an electronic version of the complete report available online. Currently, the English and Portuguese Summary is available at www.sardc.net/Imercsa/zambezi/zambezi2000/summary

IUCN Launches a Regional Environmental Law Programme

By Wilson Yule

World Conservation Union Regional Office for Southern Africa (IUCN-ROSA) in Harare recently launched a programme on strengthening environmental law in southern Africa. The programme, implemented since November 1999, aims at developing a regional information networking system and strengthening staff capacity in environmental law issues.

The groundwork on the programme started in 1991 at an environmental law workshop held in Harare where participants realised the need to incorporate law into the various programmes that are being implemented by IUCN and its members. Since then, there has been a number of informal consultations between IUCN and its members in trying to develop an environmental law programme for the southern African region.

IUCN will be in partnership with the Southern African Research and Documentation Centre- Musokotwane Environment Resource Centre for Southern Africa (SARDC-IMERCSA) in the establishment of the regional information centre on environmental law. SARDC-IMERCSA is expected to act as a regional hub to support the regional information system on the environmental law initiative which links to the global ECOLEX system being created and coordinated by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) in Nairobi and Environmental Law Centre (ELC) in Bonn, Germany.

According to the programme coordinator, Carmel Mbizvo, the information centre will establish a comprehensive repository on environmental law issues and will provide a "one-stop shop" within which users are able to access relevant, current and updated information. "Project managers need access to environmental law information in each country in which their projects operate so as to identify relevant legal issues that may arise relating to their activities," said Mbizvo.

The documentation of regional and international conventions and analysis of implementation strategies will also enable southern African countries to assess the impact of such agreements on national policies and assist in the process of law making. Such efforts could easily make available information needed for regular reporting such as state of the environment reporting, and would greatly assist countries with the information needed to meet national level commitment to multilateral environmental agreements.

As part of IUCN's environmental law programme, the information system on environmental law hopes to achieve a well-coordinated network of environmental law experts in the region through training and capacity-building initiatives. The programme will offer training and assistance in the drafting of national legislation. When run with other parallel activities such as the Networking and Capacity Building (NETCAB) programme, synergies resulting will greatly improve the performance of the environmental sector in southern Africa.

IUCN will furnish countries in the region with information on how decision-makers drafting legislation in other countries have incorporated environmental law issues into national law. The environmental law programme will also assist SADC countries in a process of building a cadre of experienced environmental lawyers through internships. The interns targeted are predominantly recently graduated lawyers from the region interested in specialising in environmental law. The interns, drawn from various countries in the region, will be attached to IUCN-ROSA, other IUCN country offices in the region and other institutions where they will be supervised by members of the IUCN commission on Environment Law in southern Africa.

The programme also hopes to empower grassroots communities to understand legal questions on intellectual property rights over indigenous knowledge. It realises the need to put gender issues on the mainstream of land tenure and property rights and proposes to empower women at all levels of decision-making so as to be able to exercise their legally mandated property rights. The role of women as resource managers is pivotal to society and the programme recognises gender inequalities in land tenure systems that affect the stewardship of land and natural resources.

IUCN will also work with a number of stakeholders in the region in promoting the development of transboundary agreements in southern Africa. Transboundary conservation issues require consideration of national legal instruments that may facilitate or hinder multi-national approaches in dealing with issues of conflicts and disputes arising from the use, development and management of resources.

The environmental law programme will go a long way in fostering regional cooperation and networking through the development of a networked information system for law experts and other stakeholders interested in environmental law issues.

It is envisaged that the programme, funded by the Netherlands government, will facilitate an open dialogue in raising awareness among various stakeholders in environmental law issues.

Opinion on the CITES 11th Conference of the Parties

By Cecil Michena, Africa Resources Trust

The 11th Conference of the Parties (COP) to CITES has come and gone. It took place from 10- 20 April 2000 in Nairobi, Kenya, in a hostile environment, for the proponents of sustainable use. The International Fund for Wildlife sponsored the Kenya Wildlife Service and other animal welfare organisations. As far as southern Africa was concerned, it was an uphill battle. Kenya with co-sponsorship from India submitted a proposal for the elephant populations of Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe to be returned to Appendix I. This would have reversed all the gains made at CITES COP 10 in Harare in 1997.

It is hard to understand why Kenya and India proposed such a drastic step. The elephant populations of Botswana and Zimbabwe have grown from 88,000 and 76,000 in 1997 to 106,000 and 84,000 in 2000 respectively. Namibia’s population stands at 10,000. This should be looked at in the context that Namibia is basically a desert. The high elephant populations reflect effective wildlife management by these countries.

These healthy and growing elephant populations are only maintained at high costs in terms of increased natural mortality, damage to the environment and high management costs. One elephant can destroy 1,200 trees annually, for example. Denying these countries the right to market elephant products in a way that benefits the elephants, communities and the environment is inflicting punishment for doing good work. Kenya is aware of these facts, but argues that the one-off ivory sale by the three southern African countries in April 1999 has triggered heavy poaching. This does not hold water. Certainly, as shown by joint elephant surveys by National Parks (Zimbabwe) and WWF SARPO, there is no such relationship between the one-off trade and poaching in southern Africa. Even for east Africa, it is too early to tell the impact of the recent trade.

Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe submitted proposals requesting to trade annual quotas of 2,000, 2,000, and 10,000 kg of ivory respectively. South Africa successfully requested down-listing to Appendix II and trade of 30,000 kg of ivory.

Negotiations between southern Africa and Kenya were tough. Kenya invested a lot of effort in trying to divide southern Africa, but that approach was foiled by the Minister for Environment from Malawi who ably chaired SADC meetings and kept the Parties together during the negotiations.

Southern African countries took one step backward in order to make two steps forward. Botswana, Namibia, and Zimbabwe withdrew their proposals as a compromise to allow Kenya to withdraw its up-listing proposals for the elephant populations of the three countries in order for the down-listing of the South African population. The South African proposal, as a result, went through unanimously. This had to be modified though to read down listing with a zero quota. Southern Africa now has four countries with elephant populations on Appendix II.

This is a major victory for southern Africa and the sustainable use philosophy for the region. It consolidates the gains and opportunities in the region. It will be difficult for another country to come up with proposals to put back these populations to Appendix I. This is victory for sustainable use. The way forward for the region is trade. For COP 12, the countries should fight for trade. Zimbabwe will continue to trade ivory for the local carving market and elephant hides – even internationally.

In the final analysis, despite the hostile environment, the greens who outnumbered the government delegates, did not have much to celebrate. Obviously, this is not the last nail on the coffin for the greens. They will re-strategise. But one point seems clear, CITES is changing. CITES COP 10 in Harare was a watershed in the history of CITES for sustainable use. It seems COP 11 consolidated the gains made at CITES COP 10. With hard work by the proponents of sustainable use, between now and COP 12, the next conference of the parties may constitute crossroads.

CITES is best known in southern Africa for the elephant. There are also other charismatic species that attract a lot of attention, like the whale.

One condition, which must be in place for the southern African states is the need for Monitoring Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE) to be operational. MIKE is being put in place to monitor the impact of one off trade by the three southern African countries.

Will MIKE work? Will it not be used to stall trade at the next COP? It is important for southern Africa to follow the issue of MIKE closely. It is also critical for southern African countries to continue to positively engage Central and West Africa, and not wait for the next conference of the parties.

Peace Parks, Regional Cooperation and Integration

By Munyaradzi Saruchera

One of the most ambitious conservation programmes in southern Africa could soon become a reality that could unlock the region’s huge economic potential. Successful implementation of the “peace park” programme will see the collapse of political boundaries of transfrontier parks that will be replaced by migration habits and grazing patterns of wildlife resources.

In 1988, the World Conservation Union’s (IUCN) Commission on National Parks and Protected Areas identified about 70 protected areas straddled across national frontiers in 65 countries in an exercise that gave birth to the transborder protected area concept. Through this programme, IUCN hoped that the national transfrontiers would be embraced and unified into common ecological habitats that promote environmental and political stability in many regions of the world.

Following feasibility studies by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) South Africa in the early 90’s, the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) provided technical assistance to the Government of Mozambique in a pilot project linking the protected areas of southern Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland and Zimbabwe.

GEF recommended a conceptual shift from strictly protected national parks to multiple resource use by local communities in the form of Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCAs). TFCAs extend beyond designated protected areas to incorporate biosphere reserves and a wide range of community-based natural resource management programmes.

According to the Peace Park Foundation, an international partnership working to promote wildlife conservation, ecotourism and employment creation in southern Africa, TFCAs are, “relatively large areas, which straddle frontiers between two or more countries and cover large-scale natural systems encompassing one or more protected areas.”

The Peace Parks Foundation’s primary objective is to promote TFCAs in southern Africa through the proposed “peace park” in conjunction with governments, the private sector and local communities to protect the environment. However, it is worth noting that the governments of the participating countries, through their national parks and wildlife departments, are in charge of TFCAs. Partnerships with private or international organisations, as is the case with the Peace Parks Foundation in South Africa, IUCN in Zimbabwe and GEF in Mozambique, is proving viable and adds value to the process.

The “peace park” concept has since been adopted to refer to TFCAs, some of which have reached advanced stages of implementation. “Towards the end of 1996, ... interest in the peace park concept was not only growing within the country (South Africa), but also in the neighbouring states. For the first time, southern Africa was being seen as a tourist destination...,” states the Peace Parks Foundation.

Indeed the “peace park” concept is growing in the region with several projects supported by different international organisations being implemented. The projects are in seven countries: Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland and Zimbabwe. There are also other TFCAs under consideration. The Okavango Upper Zambezi International Tourism Spatial Development Initiative (OUZIT SDI) incorporating the game parks of Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe covering more than 260,000 sq km of land is the largest of them.

According to Ken Small, the SDI projects manager, “the proposed project would enable the participating countries to market a unique and competitive product”.

Outside the Peace Parks Foundation framework are related projects, namely Zimbabwe-Mozambique-Zambia (ZIMOZA) Transborder Natural Resources Management (TBNRM) initiative involving Guruve, Zumbo and Luangwa districts respectively. IUCN Regional Office for Southern Africa (ROSA) coordinates the ZIMOZA project. Another project is the Chimanimani TFCA linking the proposed Nakadeu Biosphere Reserve on the foothills of Chimanimani mountain range in Manica province of Mozambique with Chimanimani National Park in Zimbabwe. The two projects involve the local communities living along the borders of the countries and other key stakeholders. The formalisation of cross-border, immigration formalities and revenue sharing mechanisms will be concluded by October 2001.

Zimbabwe’s National Parks and Wildlife Department is also currently consulting with its Botswana counterpart to draw up a transfrontier master plan incorporating the Hwange National Park (Zimbabwe) and adjacent area in Botswana, according to a senior official in the department.

According to a report by the World Travel and Tourism Council, “With the right policies tourism could boost the region’s economy by 5.9 percent a year.” Tourism, whose major attraction is the abundant wildlife in game reserves and national parks and the special natural habitats in the region, was expected to generate US$21.2 billion in economic activity in 1999.

With regional cooperation and integration being the primary objective and aspiration for the Southern African Development Community (SADC), sustainable economic development plays a critical role. While tourism continues to be a major earner of foreign currency and key contributor to economic growth for the region, wildlife remains the major draw card for the industry. Through the “peace park” concept that seeks to unify fragmented ecosystems and promote environmental stability, SADC will move closer to integration.

The “peace park” concept is consistent with and compliments the SADC Protocol on Wildlife Conservation and Law Enforcement in southern Africa, adopted in August 1999. The protocol is pursuant to Article 5 of the SADC Treaty, which identifies the sustainable use of natural resources and effective protection of the environment as one of its objectives. Article 21 of the Treaty designates natural resources and environment as an area for cooperation between member states.

The protocol further notes that, among others, its specific objectives are to:

· Promote the sustainable use of wildlife resources.

· Promote the conservation of shared wildlife resources through the establishment of transfrontier conservation areas.

· Facilitate community based natural resource management practices.

Fears of sovereignty loss that hampered integration in the past are catered for in the modus operandi of TFCAs. Each of the combined parks runs its own affairs and develops its tourist facilities, but adheres to a master plan. They share entrance fees equally, but keep the revenue earned from chalets and campsites.

Foreword to State of the Environment in the Zambezi Basin 2000

Natural resources in member states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) define our wealth as nations. They are critical to regional growth, economic integration, and collective economic independence in an increasingly globalising world.

Since most of the natural resources to which I refer are shared, achieving sustainable natural resource management requires regional cooperation, an integrated ecosystems approach and a common understanding of the natural resource base. The rationale for sustainable natural resource management is to achieve a balance between human demands on natural resources and the natural environment's ability to meet these demands.

The Zambezi River Basin, which links eight SADC members, including my own country – Mozambique – and is home to close to 40 million people, perhaps best represents the best of what we have in SADC in terms of our natural capital. Within the basin’s large expanse, we have our water resources, land and soils, forests, and wildlife. All these resources define our economic activities which range from agriculture and forestry, manufacturing and mining to conservation and tourism, and scientific monitoring and research.

All of us in the basin states depend on the natural environment for energy supplies, water, food, shelter, tourism, rural development, and jobs, for example. As a region, we therefore need to maintain the Zambezi River Basin’s healthy productive ecosystems to meet the challenges of not only intra-generational but also inter-generational equity.

As the most shared resource in the SADC region, the Basin provides a litmus test in terms of meeting one of the objectives of the SADC Treaty. Article 5 commits us all to, among other objectives, “achieve sustainable utilisation of natural resources and effective protection of the environment.”

This has to be balanced with another of the objectives articulated in the Treaty which is to: “achieve development and economic growth, alleviate poverty, enhance the standard and quality of life of the peoples of southern Africa and support the socially disadvantaged through regional integration.”

Achieving both these and other objectives of the Treaty is a balancing act which we can only pull off with the full participation of stakeholders at different levels. We realise that various factors militate against us achieving this entirely within the region without global influence. However, I would like to emphasise that development in our context should not be at the expense of our people, impoverishing them further by overexploiting our natural resources for short-term benefits. This is why at the international level, SADC countries will continue to seek equitable trade regimes that do not run roughshod over our own approach to sustainable development. We believe that sustainable development will remain a chimera if the international trade playing field is not levelled.

As a transboundary resource which is subject to management and use by various sectoral and national interests, the Basin may be overexploited for immediate and unsustainable gain rather than for long-term and sustainable development. Already there are many environmental concerns which are associated with development planning that lacks an integrated ecosystems perspective. Land degradation, poor watershed management, sewage and industrial pollution, drainage of wetlands, water abstraction and general infrastructural development have reached a magnitude which calls for urgent action in terms of environmentally sound economic development and management.

Most of the current projects in the basin are focused on sectoral approaches targeted at strengthening development capacities and potentials while integrated approaches to sustainable natural resource management remain weak. This is primarily the result of a sectoral focus, and weak inter-sectoral and transboundary coordination mechanism and structures. These do not provide for sound management of transboundary resources; show a lack of knowledge and information on the dynamics and functions of ecosystems, are due to the absence of legislative frameworks as well as limited human resources sufficiently trained and qualified to study and demonstrate the hydrological and more general environmental impacts of manipulating and using dynamic and complex resources such as ecosystems of the Basin. The issues highlighted above are perpetuated by lack of information and effective mechanisms for reviewing, exchanging and sharing of information in the basin.

With water being the key resource to economic development and survival in this generally arid region, it is important that we don’t overlook the importance of the Basin as we try to satisfy these growing demands on water. Ensuring the long-term balance between demands and the resource base's ability to meet these demands requires an integrated, coordinated and long-term management perspective. We have to accept that supplying more and more water is not the only solution. We have to learn to do with what we have. We simply have no choice. Managing demand for water and other resources is, therefore, critical to our long-term planning.

As stated in Agenda 21, integrated management of natural resources is the key to maintaining ecosystems and the essential services that they provide. The acquisition and provision of timely, effective information on the state of our natural resources is an important factor to the attainment of sustainable natural resource management.

We therefore, welcome the preparation of the State of the Environment in the Zambezi Basin, an innovative exercise we hope will strengthen collaboration between our policymakers and the public in our collective efforts to effectively manage our heritage.

Our hope is that the production of the report on the Zambezi basin is not an end in itself, but a long-term process which should continue for many decades to come. The publication of the SOE report is based on the principle that information is the key to transformation, that people need knowledge in order to act. Without this popular participation, environmental issues will remain solely the domain of government institutions and international donor agencies. We are committed to ensuring that this does not happen.

The preparation of this report is in line with the 1996 SADC Policy and Strategy for Environment and Sustainable Development whose aims are to strengthen the analytical, decision-making, legal, institutional and technological capacities for achieving sustainable development in southern Africa; increase public information, education and participation on environment and development issues in southern Africa; and expand regional integration and global cooperation on environmental and natural resources management for sustainable development. The provision and dissemination of accurate information on the state of the basin's natural resources is a very important prerequisite to the maintenance of a healthy productive ecosystem.

Sustainable use and equitable access to resources can significantly contribute towards poverty alleviation strategies in the region. Our consumption patterns and poverty will determine whether or not we will be sustainable. It is, therefore, important that we redouble our efforts at poverty alleviation and raise awareness among our people about the excesses of consumption.

We applaud the partnership of two of our sector coordination units – Environment and Land Management Sector (ELMS) and Water Sector Coordination Unit (WSCU) – and the World Conservation Union Regional Office for Southern Africa (IUCN-ROSA), the Zambezi River Authority (ZRA), and the Southern African Research and Documentation Centre-Musokotwane Environment Resource Centre for Southern Africa (SARDC-IMERCSA) for preparing such a timely report. This reflects the spirit of SADC which encourages cooperation at different levels to foster regional integration.

Multi-stakeholder cooperation can only strengthen our resolve to achieve sustainable development and raise the standard of living of the majority of our people.

President of Mozambique and SADC Current Chairman

His Excellency Joaquim Chissano