Environment and Natural Resource Conservation and Management in Mozambique

Guide to the Reader

xv Guide to the Reader Environment and Natural Resources Conservation is a collection of essays that deal with issues of environment and natural resource conservation and management in Mozambique. Using case studies and researches based on ethnographic studies, observations, interviews, informal discussions and documentary literature, the book advances the thesis that environment and natural resource conservation crises in Mozambique have a long history that goes back to the colonial era. Yet while advancing this thesis, the book is quick to criticize the thinking by some environmentalists that ecosystem destruction, land degradation and natural resource over-exploitation are solely a result of inadequate understanding of the true value of resources by the rural poor and other users. In light of this understanding, the book argues that deforestation, environmental degradation and overexploitation of some natural resources is a result of many factors (including limited knowledge of resource value), most of which are discussed in this book. While urging other scholars to search for more lasting but local solutions to the problems associated with environment and natural resource management in the country, the book suggests that government commitment and local community participation in natural resource management issues are imperative and effective in arresting the conservation crises that Mozambique is facing. These recommendations are emphasized directly or otherwise in all the essays that make part of this book. The book presents eight chapters structured as follows: Chapter one examines the history of natural resource conservation in Mozambique since the colonial era. This xvi historical overview is significantly important in so far as “local’ natural resource conservation and environment management cannot be understood without taking a historical approach, looking at social relations, and looking beyond the local system to wider political-economic structures”1 . To this end, I assert that environmental and natural resource conservation crises that Mozambique experienced during the colonial era did not end with the country’s independence in 1975. It has become a legacy carried into post-independence period, particularly the civil war (1976-1992) and post-civil war periods (1992-to date). In fact neither the conservation of natural resources nor management of the environment by respective authorities in post-civil war periods has significantly improved, as evidenced by the ever-increasing deforestation, illegal logging, land degradation, illegal mining, illegal hunting/poaching and overfishing currently taking place across the country. As such, the environment and resource conservation trails that the Portuguese colonialists instigated some centuries ago are still observable in Mozambique even to date. As discussed in this book, the reasons for the extension and persistence of these crises are many ranging from external forces, poor governance, corruption by elites in areas of conservation, poor resource base – both monetary and human resource with conservation expertise, lack of government ‘political will’ to institute reforms and enforce them fully, among others. Chapter two investigates a plethora of environmental malpractices in Mozambique. While the chapter focuses on the environmental malpractices in Mozambique in general, particular reference is made to a rural area in the southern region of the country, Xai-Xai, in Gaza province. The main argument that runs throughout this chapter is that environment mismanagement in Xai-Xai communal area xvii mirrors environmental problems and natural resource mismanagement at national level. Cases of resource mismanagement are drawn from different sectors of the economy ranging from fishery, agriculture/land use, forestry and wildlife with the recommendation that government’s full commitment is required to ensure effective and efficient comanagement of the environment and resources in the country. In chapter three, the question of the environment and relations as well as interactions with and within the environment is discussed. It should be underscored that the concept of environment is a nebulous one that warrants a robust understanding and clarifying before looking at the discussion in chapter 3. Though an oft-talked about, the concept of ‘environment’ has been defined differently across disciplines. In common usage, the concept is often used as a synonym for nature (i.e. the biophysical or nonhuman environment), but this usage creates great conceptual confusion because the environment of a particular human group includes both cultural and biophysical elements2 . Taking into account this observation, this study uses the term environment as often used in environmental anthropology to refer to “an explicit, active concern with the relationship between human groups and their respective cultural and biophysical elements”3 . The main argument advanced in chapter 3 where issues relating to...