Where are you: Home News June 2002

June 2002 Newsletter

The African Conservation Tillage Network (ACT) hosts an international workshop in Uganda

The African Conservation Tillage Network in collaboration with the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the Ugandan National Agricultural Research Organization and GTZ organised an international workshop in Uganda. The workshop ran from 19 to 25 May 2002 under the theme “Modernising Agriculture: Visions and Technologies for Animal Traction and Conservation Agriculture (CA)”. The aim of the workshop was to facilitate multi-sector interaction and sharing of experiences in the development and promotion of Animal Traction and Conservation Agriculture strategies for modernizing agriculture.

Over 120 participants drawn from 21 countries mostly in Africa attended the workshop. Participants included farmers, researchers, training and extension workers from public organisations, NGOs and international development agencies. Agricultural implement manufacturers from Brazil, Uganda, Ghana, Kenya and Zimbabwe also attended and exhibited equipment and demonstrated its use.

After intensive deliberations at the workshop the following emerged as critical issues requiring attention in developing and promoting widespread adoption of animal traction and conservation agriculture in Africa:

  1. The need for farmer focussed programmes/interventions to build farmers’ ability and capacity to identify, demand and use information

  2. Initiation and/or strengthening of local networks in the different countries

  3. Increased linkages and exposure of local players to experiences of conservation agriculture in other countries/continents

  4. Identification of conservation agriculture applications in local environments that would save as examples and provide information on conservation agriculture

  5. Identifying individuals or organisations within a country to coordinate information collection, education and dissemination

  6. Identifying and making available an increased range of conservation agriculture equipment from the international shelf

  7. Promoting farmer experimentation with the involvement of equipment manufacturers, researchers and extension personnel

  8. Facilitating promotional approaches and efforts that involve agricultural equipment suppliers, manufacturers and other stakeholders

Adaptive Management of Natural Capital Systems in Semi-Arid Southern Africa: Scale, Resilience and Sustainability 
The Institute of Environmental Studies in collaboration with the Resilience Alliance (www.resalliance.org) is conducting a project to identify ecologically, economically and institutionally viable systems of sustaining complex mixes of natural capital based enterprises in parts of Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

Human enterprise systems in the semi-arid areas of southern Africa are generally fragile because primary production is low and highly variable both in space and time. As a result enterprises based on harvesting natural resources, i.e. natural capital systems, are highly scale dependent and activities such as tourism or safari hunting require large areas to be viable. A direct consequence of managing natural resources over large spatial scales is that it forces managers into common property management regimes or at least into complex institutional arrangements to ensure a minimally viable enterprise scale. Such institutional arrangements are intrinsically complex, difficult to manage and vulnerable to perturbations. 

Two systems of particular interest in southern Africa, which have been subjected to a range of extreme shocks are the rangeland areas of the South East Lowveld of  Zimbabwe, and Gorongosa National Park (GNP), together with its surrounding buffer areas, in Mozambique. In both systems the natural capital was severely depleted following external shocks; the 1991/92 drought in the South East Lowveld and the civil war of the 1980s in Mozambique, in which Gorongosa was a centre of intense conflict.

With its far greater human resources and human capital the South East Lowveld has made impressive progress in rebuilding its natural capital and realigning its economic activity base to the ecological and economic realities that now prevail. These changes have seen the emergence of innovative institutions that have radically altered the scales  at which natural capital systems are being managed. Their resilience and sustainability is being tested yet again as Zimbabwe's land reform programme follows an unanticipated trajectory. 

In stark contrast Gorongosa has made comparatively little progress; limited human resources and human capital have severely constrained the reconfiguration process there.  There is thus great potential to transfer some of the lessons already learned in the South East Lowveld to the reconfiguration taking place in and around Gorongosa. The two sites offer unique opportunities for exploring determinants of resilience and    sustainability in natural capital based systems. The South East Lowveld offers important experience and histories in institutional development as well as in the marketing and productive use of wildlife resources. Gorongosa offers a challenging opportunity to influence the development of one of the prime protected areas in Southern Africa. 

This project seeks to generate a theoretical understanding of the relationships between the scale of natural capital systems and enterprise resilience and sustainability. It also seeks to produce specific, management focused outputs that are developed in the context of the theoretical understanding. 

For more information on this project contact Dr Tim Lynam tlynam@science.uz.ac.zw

 Short Courses

The Institute of Environmental Studies will be running the following short courses:

1.  Introduction To Environmental Impact Assessment

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is a tool used to assess the potential effects of development activities on the environment.  EIAs are made in order to analyze how the environment is affected by proposed development projects and how a project can contribute, in the best possible way to sustainable development.  The state currently has an EIA policy requesting organizations or individuals interested in investing in development projects to conduct an EIA before embarking on the project.  Sectors of the economy affected by this policy include mining, forestry, urban development, and agriculture.

Who should attend?

The course is aimed at those individuals, agencies and organizations who have an interest in EIA and may be involved in the EIA process.

Course objectives

The course aims are:

Fee:                        Z$20,000
Dates:    15 – 19 July  2002      (Last date for application is 21 June 2002)
Venue:                University of Zimbabwe

2. Introduction To Cleaner Production Concepts And Practice

Industries are struggling to address problems of inefficient resource use, pollution and conforming to environmental legislation as well as emerging green markets. Cleaner Production can be a tool for addressing these problems. Cleaner Production is the continuous application of an integrated preventive environmental strategy applied to processes, products and services to increase overall efficiency and reduce risks to humans and the environment.

Who should attend?

Course Objectives

To give participants the basic information to enable them to understand cleaner production. The course also aims to equip participants with skills to enable them to introduce and implement cleaner production in their organizations.

Fee:         Z$20,000
Dates:    4 – 8 November 2002    (Last date for applications is 5 October 2002)
Venue:   University of Zimbabwe

For more information contact:

The Short Course Coordinator
Institute of Environmental Studies,
P O Box MP167,
Mt Pleasant,
Harare
Tel:  302603, 332039  Fax:  332853  Email: fnengo@africaonline.co.zw or dvhevha@mweb.co.zw

Publications

 

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