Environment and Natural Resource Conservation and Management in Mozambique

Preface

vii Preface The debates around issues of environment and natural resource conservation and management in Africa and beyond have been highly momentous and have sustained controversies of epic proportions in conservation sciences and environmental anthropology. Given the nebulous nature of the concept of environment coupled with problems around resource conservation and management, a robust comprehension of both the concept of environment and root causes of the problems around natural resource conservation and management is more urgent than ever, especially in contexts such as those of emerging economies such as Africa in general and in particular Mozambique. In Africa, the debate on environmental conservation has on one hand been provoked by the fact that while developing countries have contributed less than any other region to the greenhouse gas emissions that are widely held responsible for global warming, they are more vulnerable due to their dependence on burning fuels1 , and also because of their high poverty levels. As pointed out by Mawere2 , “the impacts of climate change in Africa are generally manifested in human health and in the agricultural sector worsening the existing levels of poverty and undermining all development efforts in the continent”. The other consequences include adverse impacts on Africa’s varied livelihoods systems and the unique biodiversity of its ecosystems. In fact the global environmental change such as climate change, for example, has impacted negatively on ecosystems thereby making water and food security especially in already semi-arid areas more uncertain than ever. This has caused most forecasting scenarios suggesting greater vulnerability to ecosystem viii damage, reduced ecosystem services, and undermined resilience to global environmental change especially among rural poor. Building resilience to global environmental change and other shocks, for example, needs to be mainstreamed into rural people’s livelihood planning to ensure food security. This is especially important for vulnerable populations with low adaptive capacities such as rural people in sub-Saharan African countries like Mozambique. The majorities of these people make their living from rain-fed agriculture3 , and largely depend on small-scale subsistence agriculture for their livelihood security4 . On the other hand, debate on natural resource conservation and management has been chiefly sparked by the paradox that while there seem to be a ‘natural resource boom in Africa’, the continent remains one of the poorest in the world. One of Africa’s countries, Mozambique for example, is ranked one of the poorest countries in the world. In fact, as the Rural Poverty Report-Mozambique (2007) and Africol.com5 revealed, Mozambique remains one of the poorest nations in the world and more than 80% of its citizens in rural areas live in extreme poverty, living on less than a US$1 a day, and lack basic services like schools, clean water and hospitals. Although the concept of extreme poverty is difficult to define with precision as it is not static, I identify with the World Bank’s 2005 and 2010 definition that “extreme poverty is living on less than US$1.25 a day. This means living on the equivalent of US$1.25 a day, in the US, buying US goods. In 2011, this meant surviving on the equivalent of US$1.50, AUD$2 or 1 pound per day” 6 . Thus, according to this definition, majority of Mozambique’s population, as in many other parts of Africa, live in extreme poverty, yet Mozambique is one such country that is ix endowed with diverse natural resources including fisheries, forests, wildlife and minerals7 . In view of these observations, this book explores environment and natural resource conservation and management issues in developing countries in Africa. In particular, the book explores environment and natural resource conservation and management problems in rural communities of Mozambique. While the problems discussed in this book are common phenomena in many countries in Africa and beyond, the book adopts Mozambique as its case study for two major reasons. First, the choice of Mozambique is premised on the fact that Mozambique’s environment and conservation problems have persisted from the colonial period through independence to the present time. Second, as noted by Leslie8 , social systems constantly shift to exert new stresses and shocks as well as present unanticipated opportunities that can impact environment, biodiversity, and natural resource conservation efforts. In view of this understanding, it can be argued that Mozambique as one country whose social systems have kept changing since the colonial period through the present conservation strategies need to be re-examined...