By Mutizwa Mukute (This is the second in a series of four articles about the drought in southern Africa and its implications.)
As southern Africa’s rainy season approaches, people watch the skies anxiously for signs of rain which can bring relief from the worst drought in the region’s history.
Hunger stalks the rural areas in some countries, cattle are dying by the thousands, rivers have dried up and development has had to give way to daily survival.
Hardest hit is Mozambique where more than 3 million people are in need of food aid as a result of drought and the impact of 15 years of war. More than 5,000 people have been arriving at refugee camps in Zimbabwe and Malawi each month since the drought began biting deeply after three years of steadily declining rainfall.
Almost 2 million refugees have fled to countries bordering Mozambique.
Health workers in Zimbabwe say that refugees arriving in the eastern part of the country are emaciated and weak from hunger. They estimate that 200 people, many of them children, die from hunger each month after the long trek from their homes.
Southern Africa’s rainfall statistics show a 50 percent decline in the 1991-92 rainy season, aggravating chronic dry spells over the last decade. Only Angola has escaped the devastating drought.
The Limpopo River is completely empty for 300 kilometres in Mozambique. In Botswana and Zimbabwe it is reduced to a trickle.
Normally rich agricultural land along its fertile watershed has been devastated with more than 30,000 hectares lost to cultivation.
In some parts of Namibia women must walk up to five hours in each direction to carry water and in parts of Mozambique it’s an overnight journey. Many thousands of peasants are migrating to urban areas in search of water.
Mozambique’s most recent Emergency Drought Appeal reports that 75 percent of water sources have dried up in Sofala and Manica provinces, and larger centres like Beira cannot handle the influx of people since their own water supplies are endangered. The flow of the Pungue River which supplies Beira is one percent of normal.
Water rationing in Zimbabwean cities of Mutare and Bulawayo has been in place for months -Bulawayo residents are limited to 300 litres per day per household, while those in Mutare are down to 100 litres. If normal rains do not come this year both cities could run dry.
In Namibia the major reservoirs are at about one-quarter of normal capacity, and sheep and goats, the main assets of this normally arid country, are dying by the thousands.
Women in southern Zambia search for water at night in beds of dried up rivers such as the Kafue and Luangwa. As the water tables shrink the level of impurities increases, causing health problems.
According to Professor Salome Misana of the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, deforestation and desertification in the region are the major causes of drought.
“The disappearance of trees means much more than an unsightly barren landscape,” she said.
Bradwell Garanganga, a meteorologist in Zimbabwe, agrees. He explains that trees and ground cover affect local weather patterns significantly.
“Trees help recycle moisture into the atmosphere which then forms rain clouds. They suck up water from deep in the ground, and then convert it into water vapour which passes from the leaves into the surrounding air,” he explains.
Vegetation cover also influences the movement of air, which affects the formation of clouds. A woodland absorbs large amounts of energy from the sun. The warm air over the woodland rises, taking with it the water vapour given off by the trees.
Garanganga says that vegetation “initiates the upward movement of air and this may lead to the formation of rain clouds, resulting in precipitation.”
If the ground is barren because trees and vegetation have been removed by people and animals, there is nothing to help form clouds. “The land degradation in many parts of southern Africa reduces chances of a good rainy season,” adds Garanganga.
Uneven population distribution patterns in the region and poverty are among the causes of excessive deforestation. People cannot be asked to stop cutting trees for fuel when they have no affordable alternatives, say forestry experts.
The severe drought has also been attributed by weather experts to changes beyond the control of people in southern Africa. The “El Nino Southern Oscillation” is the scientific name given to sudden global weather pattern changes. El Nino involves changes in ocean currents and air movements.
Last year there was a sudden warming of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Peru in South America. As a result of the warmer ocean currents, rainfall was unusually high in South America, while drought occurred in southern Africa.
According to experts on El Nino, this year the rainy season in southern Africa is expected to be better.
“The El Nino phenomenon is forecast to be close to normal for the 1992/93 season, and Jess hostile (to southern Africa) than in the recent past,” states Garanganga.
“Over the past century, in every decade there has been a drought in this region and often, though not always, good seasons followed,” adds another Zimbabwean meteorologist, Wish Marume.
Whatever the reasons, many people tum to their spiritual roots for explanations and hope. Some believe the drought is a punishment, and a sign that people in the region have not been behaving properly.
Elders are brewing special beer to ask their ancestors to remove this calamity. Christian congregations are praying for rain. Some of the more affluent are supporting the poor. And daily people wake up to cast anxious eyes at the skies to see if the familiar cloud formations have appeared. (SARDC)
