Africa is endowed with both surface and underground water resources however; there is a high variability in the amount of water available for domestic, industrial and agricultural use. Water shortage has become a yearly routine and affects the livelihood security of a majority of the population. As popularly put by Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of the United Nations: “We need to learn how to value water, because, water is life”. According to a study published by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), groundwater, the unseen source of life for two billion people, is diminishing almost everywhere in the world. The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) initiative recognises the water resource issue as a priority focus and seeks to achieve socio-economic outcomes and sustained poverty reduction.

The water variability in Africa has been caused mainly by pollution, mismanagement, population increase and rapid depletion of forest. Pollution is one of the major problems accounting for low quality and quantity of water resources. Polluting agents emanate from cultivated areas where pesticides and fertilisers that have accumulated in the soil leak into the streams. Persistent felling of trees around the catchment areas of most rivers and dumping of industrial and household waste into the streams are the other factors. There is also a new phenomenon of indiscriminate disposal of polythene materials in some African countries, such as Ghana and Nigeria, worsening the already polluted surface water and preventing underground seepage of water. The result is the poor quality and quantity of water resources we have today. Some 450million people in 29 countries live with chronic water shortages, thus one person in six cannot rely on safe drinking water.

Water resources in Africa have been widely botched and used without regard to any management regulation. Lack of enforcement by authorities of the existing regulations that control the use and the pollution of water aggravate the water resource problem in some countries of Africa. Population increase and the demand for water resources for various uses without a mechanism for recycle and reuse also contribute to the water variability issue.

Rapid depletion of tropical forests is another factor accounting for the low quantity of water resources. For instance, in the 1900s, Ghana was covered by 8.2 million hectares of original moist tropical forest which had reduced to 2.1 million hectares by 1998 and stood at 1.4 million hectares in 2003.

The effects of this includes but is not limited to seasonal water supply shortages for domestic and industrial use and the spread of water related diseases. Seasonal water shortage for domestic, industrial and agricultural uses affect socio-economic development of many countries in Africa. We are all a living testimony to this.

Water related diseases spread as a result of inadequate and safe drinking water for the majority of the populace. Water related diseases kill a child every eight seconds and are responsible for 80% of all illness and deaths in Africa.

Livelihood security of the people is undermined and has the potential to leave the majority of the populace vulnerable to various forms of threats. Where lies the sustainability element of this valuable resource?

Government agencies including ministries, water research institutes, water related bodies, universities, other research institutions, NGO’s and individuals have made several attempts and encouraging statements in the past and still strive in diverse ways to address the problem. Consider encouraging words and statements from government bodies, other institutions and individuals such as these:

“ government will commit itself to ensuring the proper management of water resources to prevent misuse, over exploitation and pollution”

“ better water resource management practices will help improve the quantity and quality of water for all ”

“ management and sustenance of the country’s water resources should be a concerted effort”

“ government, NGO’s, universities as well as research institutions should collaborate to seek a more permanent solution to the problems of the country’s water resources”

“ Rain harvesting, for instance, could save a lot of people from the water shortage”

Despite all these efforts and encouraging statements, the water quality and quantity problem is still worsening day-by-day. For the past years we have largely paid lip service to the long-term consequences of our actions. Our individual behaviour and attitudes damage this valuable resource; let’s think about them now. Never lose hope; all is not lost. Today we are in the position to buy the water of tomorrow.

* David Wellington ESSAW, a Ghanaian, is a PhD Candidate at the Centre for Ecological Economics and Water Policy Research, University of New England, Australia. His interest is in water management and policy issues, development planning and management and community development.

* Please send comments to

One of humankind's closest relatives, the bonobo, may be facing extinction. Scientists working in the Democratic Republic of the Congo - the only country where bonobos live - have found evidence that they are being hunted for bushmeat in areas where they should be protected. Numbers may be down to 20% of previous levels.

Only 14 percent of South Africans believe their country should follow Zimbabwe by seizing white-owned commercial farms for landless blacks, while 31 percent of 2,000 South Africans surveyed - including 45 percent of whites - said they felt there was a danger the chaotic scenes seen in Zimbabwe could be repeated in their country. Although many white farmers say they see the need for change, some describe the process as "Zimbabwe in a velvet glove".

The decision by Tunisian authorities to protect 15 wetland sites has been welcomed by environmentalist groups. The wetlands to be protected total over 750,000 hectares and vary in landscape. These landscapes include salt lakes, swamps, peat bogs, dunes, karstic caves, oases, and lagoons, and are home to some 85 aquatic plant species.

A long awaited hydrological and monitoring network for Zambia's Itezhi Tezhi Dam is finally in place, following a three-year initiative to improve water flows in the Kafue Flats. The dam for years has disrupted natural flooding and destroyed biodiversity in ancient wetlands, but the network now is to restore this valuable habitat.

Like many other Third World countries pushed by the global policies of colonialism and later neocolonialism to poverty and indebtedness, Congo has a current debt of $4.9 billion. Like many other southern governments, too, advised by multilateral agencies to commerce their wealth -natural resources-, the government of Congo has been placing greater emphasis on the growth of the timber industry in the Congo Basin, which has the world's second largest stretches of virgin rainforest after the Amazon in South America.

Ba'aka pygmies, the indigenous population of the forest, have their traditional lifestyle under threat as the forest opens up to intensive logging, both legal and illegal. Certainly, trees valuable to the Ba'aka for their fruits, oil, medicinal bark and for the construction of pirogues are rapidly disappearing under the loggers' saws.

For example, the Sapelli, an African mahogany, is one of the most highly-prized trees on the world timber market - and it is also host to a species of caterpillar, an essential food source, that emerge towards the end of the rainy season when hunting and fishing is limited. A sack of smoked caterpillars can sell for up to $100, and just one tree can provide up to five sacks per year. This money remains in the local economy, whereas a large proportion of the money from logging leaves the country.

An initiative to protect the forest area was launched in 2002 with the creation of the Congo Basin Forest Partnership (CBFP) at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, held in South Africa. The CBFP has planned a network of new and expanded national parks which will cover 40% of the entire Congo Basin. But such conservation policy has been criticised for often having little regard for indigenous populations - for example, the Ba'aka have not yet been informed about the CFBP national parks development.

"Local forest communities and civil society groups have so far been completely excluded from the initiative, which is primarily about 'partnerships' between international conservation organisations and international loggers," said Simon Counsell, director of the Rainforest Foundation.

Meanwhile "eco guards" police the forests to stop illegal hunting and trade in bush meat, which is the staple of the Ba'aka. Though, these regulations are undermined by corruption as the trade is organised by members of local elites who ensure that "their" bush meat sellers are not targeted by the eco guards - and instead, the eco guards have been accused of victimising the Ba'aka. "We get so much suffering because of eco guards," Nyaku, a Ba'aka from Mbua, near the administrative centre of Pokola in northern Congo, told Focus On Africa. "We can't go and find things in the forest as we used to. All we hear is hunger."

Should any debt be paid by destruction, dispossession and hunger?

* Article based on information from: "Concern over Congo logging", Kate Eshelby, BBC, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3937829.stm

SOURCE: WORLD RAINFOREST MOVEMENT
W R M B U L L E T I N 89
International Secretariat
Maldonado 1858; Montevideo, Uruguay
E-Mail: [email protected]
Web page: http://www.wrm.org.uy
Editor: Ricardo Carrere

After four decades of agricultural-led development strategies in the postindependent Malawi, economic growth has been erratic and a large proportion of the population live below the poverty line and studies suggests that the poverty situation has worsened. Smallholder farmers face several constraints including landlessness and small land holdings and declining agricultural productivity, states this University of Malawi study, which argues that past agricultural strategies have been less successful because they ignored the land question among smallholder farmers.

Angry residents of a southern Nigerian village where a Royal Dutch/Shell oil pipeline burst, have set the spilled crude on fire, preventing repair teams from reaching the site, the company said. Shell said it first noticed leaks in its 18-inch diameter pipeline at Egbeda village in Rivers State last weekend. The pipeline is part of a key network that transports crude oil from the inland oilfields of the Niger Delta to the terminals on the coast for export.

Think you have it bad at the gas pump? All over the world, people feel the squeeze from the cut-throat practices of the oil industry. From the Exxon Valdez oil spill to the death of Ken Saro Wiwa who was executed for protesting Shell's oil drilling of the Niger Delta, the oil industry has been behind some of the most devastating environmental disasters and human rights abuses in recent history. That's why Corporate Accountability International is campaigning around the world to challenge two of the most egregious oil companies in the world, ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco. Visit the website of Stop Corporate Abuse for more information.

The government’s land reform programme requires big spending, close to R2-billion a year. But the total budget for the Department of Agriculture and Land Affairs was less than R2-billion this year. A massive R13-billion is needed next year to meet President Thabo Mbeki’s restitution deadline at the end of next year, where land or cash compensation is given to communities dispossessed during the apartheid years.

Wangari Maathai, who won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, says African governments should do more about climate change. Professor Maathai, also Kenya's deputy environment minister, was speaking to African journalists at the United Nations Environment Programme HQ in Nairobi. She said climate change mattered, and the Kyoto Protocol on how to limit its effects must be taken seriously by all.

On paper all Namibian parties agree on one issue: the country’s need to address the land reform process.

This seems to indicate that there is a strong likelihood that the ruling South West Africa People’s Organisation (Swapo), which is expected to win the 15 and 16 November general elections, will enjoy nationwide support to redress the country’s land-ownership issue.

Swapo has been in power since 1990 after it won the pre-independence elections held under the United Nations aegis after more than two decades of armed struggle against apartheid South Africa. Namibia became independent on 21 March 1990.

Swapo started addressing the legacy of over 100 years of occupation, first by Germany followed by South Africa, which is manifested by uneven distribution of farm land, in 1992 when it held a consultative conference on land attended by representatives of all Namibian communities.

It is in line with the resolutions adopted at the consultative conference that Swapo subsequently shaped its Land Reform policy passed in parliament. This has seen the acquisition of numerous derelict farms to resettle a number of communities.

In 1994, the government has also allocated N$20 million (at the current exchange rate, one US$ buys N$6.02) annually to acquire land to resettle the landless, a figure which has since grown to N$50 million per year.

This resulted in the buying of some 846,583 hectares on which 6,256 families were resettled. Swapo has promised to increase the number to over 6,436 families within the next five years.

Furthermore, Swapo also intends to increase from N$50 million to N$100 million per annum to acquire yet more land.

The opposition Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA) agrees that the land issue has to be addressed, and that “everybody is in favour”.

However, party spokesperson Johan de Waal added that, “there has to be a set of criteria for resettlement and land expropriation.”

He accused government of using an ad hoc criterion to expropriate land, with a result that commercial farmers are stopping farming, creating serious problems to the economy.

Because Namibia’s farms are located in semi-arid land and this requires know-how and financial capacity to explore, the DTA believes government should allocate resources for the education and training of resettled families, lest the farming land becomes unproductive in the long run.

In its manifesto, Swapo promises to do just that – to couple the resettlement programme with training and capacity building in order to promote sustainable land use.

For its part, the National Unity Democratic Organisation (NUDO) says it would “definitely support” any land reform policy that takes into account several key aspects.

These include the repossession of land owned by the absentee landlords, using legal mechanisms to repossess underdeveloped and under-utilised land, and buying 2,500-3,500 hectares of commercial farms which have been a problem in the past years because of the “willing seller and willing buyer” system.

NUDO feels that not so many farmers have been willing to sell, and thus there should be a fast-track programme geared at distribution and resettlement.

Arnold Tjihuiko, NUDO director of elections, said that his party recognises that the “land issue is very crucial and so it has to be tackled sooner than later.”

“Let us do it early while there is time to do this,” said Tjihuiko, adding that otherwise there could be potential for problems in the long run.

To offset any unproductiveness arising from resettlement of peasant farmers with lack of capacity or resources to farm, NUDO believes resettled peasant farmers should be assisted “to get access to training, credit and markets in order to maintain farm productivity.”

Even the Republican Party, which is mainly white-dominated with about 70 per cent of its executive white (although it claims to be broad-based) agrees land resettlement is important, and it is “definitely in favour of land reform.”

Perhaps, realising it has little chance of winning the election, the RP has been urging Swapo to “urgently come up with a final and sustainable land reform plan which will benefit all of Namibia’s inhabitants.”

They say such a plan should enshrine the very principle of “willing buyer, willing seller” which is contested by other parties because it has not been forthcoming in getting farmers to sell; it should not be applied as a punitive measure or a political football; and crucially landowners should have the right of appeal in a higher court when expropriation occurs and a dispute arises.

Namibians claim there are a lot of farms belonging to absentee landlords, and cases of farmers owning more than one farm up to 10, as well as under-utilised land that government should expropriate and resettle farmers in them.

Now what remains to be seen is whether after the noise and frenzy of the elections all the parties will still remain committed to addressing the land issue. (SARDC)

* SOURCE: Southern African News Features offers a reliable source of regional information and analysis on the Southern African Development Community, and is provided as a service to the SADC region. This article may be reproduced with credit to the author and publisher. SANF is produced by the Southern African Research and Documentation Centre (SARDC), which has monitored regional developments since 1985. http://www.sardc.net/Editorial/Newsfeature/04981104.htm

In several recent publications, including his recently published book The World’s Banker and an article in Foreign Policy entitled "NGOs: Fighting Poverty, Hurting the Poor," author Sebastian Mallaby identified the Ugandan NGO, National Association of Professional Environmentalists (NAPE), as an example of NGOs that do more harm than good for development. NAPE was instrumental in halting the proposed Bujagali Dam, a project found to be an economically poor deal for the government, as well as having social and environmental costs. In this interview with the International Rivers Network, NAPE's Frank Muramuzi responds to Mallaby.

Environmental group Earthlife Africa will go to court on Monday as part of the group's legal battle against power utility Eskom's proposed pebble bed modular reactor (PBMR), with the court case aimed at upholding South Africa's environmental rights, Earthlife said in a statement. The Legal Resources Centre will be representing Earthlife Africa in the case. The authorisation of Eskom's proposed PBMR will come under judicial scrutiny on November 29, 2004 and November 30, 2004 when a full bench of the Cape Town High Court considers whether the authorisation of the plant given on 25 June, 2003 was unlawful.

Wangari Maathai's Green Belt Movement trains women to set up their own tree nurseries. "We make them independent people who can take care of their environment by themselves," says Maathai. As well as tree planting, Maathai is African Co-President of Jubilee 2000 and is campaigning for the cancellation of Third World Debt.

The African Commission is due to hear a legal case brought by the Endorois, a Kenyan pastoralist community, at an admissibility hearing scheduled to take place in Dakar in early December. In a significant development in the struggle for rights of the Endorois pastoralists, in June 2004, the Commission accepted a call by rights groups to enact 'Provisional Measures' to prevent irreparable harm to the community and their lands as a result of mining activities. The Commission made an urgent appeal to President Mwai Kibaki of Kenya, urging him to ensure 'no further issuance of the alleged mining concessions'. The case is likely to coincide with Kenyan 'pastoralist week' during which communities will raise rights issues and threats to their future cultural survival.

Pastoralism, a distinct African culture, form of livestock production and nomadic way of life, may vanish forever in its traditional form without urgent action to address the needs of pastoralist peoples in eastern Africa and the Horn. As pastoralists gather this weekend for Kenyan Pastoralist Week, this is the stark message of a new Minority Rights Group report, 'Pastoralism on the Margin', which warns that the essential foundations of this unique and ancient way of life have been all but eroded in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. The demise of pastoralism, largely due to competing interests over land and failure to acknowledge and protect pastoralist rights, would be 'a human rights tragedy and a major loss to Africa's and humanity's cultural heritage', stated MRG.

The tremendous progress in banning antipersonnel mines must not mask the reality that governments are not doing nearly enough to help landmine survivors and get mines out of the ground quickly, campaigners said on the eve of the Nairobi Summit on a Mine-Free World. “Failure to fully address the needs and rights of the ever-growing number of landmine survivors could undercut the remarkable achievements of decreased landmine use, production, trade and stockpiling of the weapon”, said Ms. Jody Williams, co-laureate with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize. “Governments must renew and even expand their political and financial commitments if our joint effort to eradicate antipersonnel mines is to succeed,” she added.

In what has been described as an important step to cementing territorial rights, and thereby the country's agricultural and economic recovery, three rural communities in Angola's southern province of Huila will receive title to their land on Friday. Paolo Groppo, a Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) official in the capital, Luanda, told IRIN that "we are concerned that community rights have not been protected so far" and that "it is clearly important for local communities to have their territorial rights recognised by the authorities".

Hope for the survival of many of Africa's unique animals lies in multinational cooperation initiatives like the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, although the challenges remain enormous, say conservationists. The park, situated on the South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe borders, is one of the world's largest. The treaty to create the parks was signed in Xai-Xai, Mozambique, in December 2002, bringing together some of the region's best and most acclaimed national wild game parks: South Africa's Kruger, Zimbabwe's Gonarezhou, and Mozambique's newly developed Limpopo.