Environmental Conservation through Ubuntu and Other Emerging Perspectives

Chapter 3 - Re-theorizing the environment conservation debate in Africa: A closer look at Zimbabwe

63 Chapter 3 Re-theorizing the environment conservation debate in Africa: A closer look at Zimbabwe Introduction The discourse on “environmental conservation” is highly dynamic and has swirled controversies of epic proportions in conservation sciences, environmental anthropology and knowledge studies. Given the muddled nature of conservation, coupled with the varying interpretations evoked by the deployment of the concept across different disciplines, a more vigorous conceptualization of the notion calls into question its practical manifestations and application in particular situated contexts – particularly within the conservation sciences and environmental anthropology. In Zimbabwe, conservation by the state has tended to favour and privilege Western scientific models at the expense of the “indigenous” conservation practices of local people, as informed by their indigenous epistemologies. This chapter thus represents an attempt to rethink conservation in Zimbabwe, adopting the Norumedzo Communal Area in south-eastern Zimbabwe as its case study. The choice of Norumedzo is based on the fact that this is one area where the highly esteemed and delicious insects, harurwa (edible stink bugs, Encosternum delegorguei) are found. As a result of these insects being valued as social “actors” and the appreciation shown to both the Western and endogenous epistemologies, conservation in the area has enjoyed considerable success. To this end, this chapter lends support 64 to the arguments of Walter Mignolo (2000) and Ramon Grosfoguel (2006a, 2006b) in their advocacy for critical border thinking in issues of knowledge regarding environmental conservation. Background to conservation debates in Zimbabwe Zimbabwe is currently suffering from a myriad of environmental conservation problems, in addition to destabilising economic and political entanglements. As a result, environmental sustainability and thus sustainable development has become too difficult a practice to implement in the country. Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research (NISER) (2009) asserts that sustainable development can be conceptually understood as having three constituent but overlapping parts: environmental, economic and social-political. Several United Nations texts (the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document in particular) refer to economic, social and environmental protection as the “interdependent and mutually reinforcing pillars” of sustainable development. Yet balancing the conservation of nature’s resources with the needs for development has always been problematic in southern Africa, particularly in Zimbabwe. This has been due to the compound effect of different factors, such as the unfair distribution of resources, an obsession with Western scientism, the disregard of endogenous epistemologies; population increase, low education levels and abject poverty (see Mawere 2013). These issues have collectively precipitated the conservation debate in Zimbabwe. Discussing the actual cause(s) of the environmental crisis in Zimbabwe thus has resulted in serious contestations amongst scholars, with some 65 arguing that overpopulation and indigenous practices have triggered environmental degradation. Aylen (1941), for example, claimed that during pre-colonial times and the earlier part of the colonial period, human land use had little detrimental impact on the environment in Zimbabwe because of the extensive nomadic and fallow practices used, which could well provide for the relatively low population densities, as well as being due to the employment of indigenous soil conservation measures. According to Bowyer-Bower (1996), a Western science-based awareness of the causes and effects of land degradation through inappropriate use and management – and the subsequent need for appropriate monitoring techniques and conservation measures – has been well established and legislated for in Zimbabwe since the twentieth century, resulting in a formal management infrastructure for the research, implementation and support of land use guidelines. It could therefore be argued that Bowyer-Bower and Aylen would view the environmental conservation crisis in Zimbabwe as the combined result of population growth and the resistance of local communities to the implementation of Western conservation techniques. Other scholars (Moyo et al 1991; Phimister 1974; Mackenzie 1970; Iliffe 1990; Masaka 2011) blame science and colonialism for the country’s conservation crisis. In this vein, Moyo et al (1991), for instance, argue that during pre-colonial times and the earlier part of the colonial period, land was neither a scarce resource, nor was it under threat of permanent environmental degradation, but with increasing colonial settlement and control, inequality of access to the natural resources was dictated. Moyo et al, thus, are against Aylen’s (1941) view that during pre-colonial times and the earlier part of the colonial period, there was little detrimental 66 impact on the environment by human land use in Zimbabwe because of the extensive, nomadic and fallow land-use practices that provided well for the...