Govt not serious on Dzalanyama
Fellow Malawians, Dzalanyama Forest Reserve has been poisoned and it is dying. Experts—judging at the rate of how trees are being immensely cut down in the reserve—have concluded that if left unattended to, the reserve will exhaust in the next five to 10 years.
The good thing is that almost everybody now understands this. My good Japanese friend Kosaku Onaka—a Jica policy advisor on forestry in the department of forestry—has been relentless in raising Dzalanyama’s antennae to a much wider public.
Not once, but thrice, have journalist been taken to Dzalanyama. So, too, has the private sector and members of Parliament.
Even government has not been left out. Minister of Natural Resources, Energy and Mining Atupele Muluzi—accompanied by a large government entourage—toured the dying reserve twice.
To mean, in terms of awareness, Onaka and friends have done a great job. Today, we all, as a nation, hold the truth of Dzalanyama’s dying to be self-evident.
As a journalist who has written immensely on Dzalanyama’s dying, I would be failing in my duty if, today, I do not clean out my closet regarding government’s business-as-usual response to the problem.
It is almost a month and a week since Onaka took Muluzi and senior government technocrats to the reserve. Memories are vivid on how Onaka captured Dzalanyama’s dying in his briefing to government officials.
Two weeks ago, government, through the department of forestry and the Malawi Defense Force (MDF), conducted a one-week law enforcement patrol in the reserve. But what would a week-old patrol do? Today, the destruction has returned to its normalcy.
Last week, government launched a Dzalanyama emergency appeal. The appeal was just about government calling for a hand—both financially and technically—from other stakeholders. It was a brilliant idea, of course. But what was its necessity when you are dealing with an emergency that is Dzalanyama?
In my previous entry, I proposed the need to have a lengthy resident of the MDF in the reserve as a solution to the emergency. I got quite a positive response from the general public.
Interestingly, a coalition of six MPs from Dedza, Lilongwe and Mchinji— whose constituencies drift into Dzalanyama—have spoken in unison for the need to have the MDF as quick as yesterday.
The Lilongwe City Council, too, supported the proposal.
Driven by the support, I raised the proposal to Muluzi and Dr Yanira Ntupanyama, the principal secretary, on the sidelines of the emergency appeal launch.
The two, clearly, came out bemused. They talked about how expensive it is to keep MDF in the reserve. They found the MDF proposal sensible, but were too cautious and concerned with its viability both in terms of finance and community response.
But let’s face it: if we want to save the emergency that is Dzalanyama, what immediate solution, apart from engaging with the MDF, can be put in place?
I will judge government’s commitment to saving Dzalanyama if they accept its dying as an emergency not with words, but immediate action. n
