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Ruaha Basin: Ecology on verge of destruction
2006-05-26 09:30:22
By Kasembeli Albert, writing for JET
As one ascends and rolls downhill, the scenic and the siren roads along steep valleys, you can not help reminiscent the cool and marvelling Alpine Europe, along the Rhine.
More so, the undulating hills crestfully capped by lazily gliding fog and mist illuminate gorgeous valleys lavishly endowed with indigenous tropical rain forests-boosting a unique and rare diverse species of flora and fauna.
But as you encounter human settlement, though sparse, you appreciate the ability of a climate that is no doubt committed to sustaining humanity in a flourishing agricultural sector-both in bounty harvests of cereal and horticulture.
It all manifests in healthy pears plants surging down, on the verge of breaking, under the weight of a bounty yield of the fruits; birds and children have had their share, but the stench from the rotting fruit says it all-the fruit is in a abundance.
This is the pleasant story of the Ruaha River Basin, a catchment area that serves the great Ruaha River. Serving 3.2 million inhabitants, the Ruaha basin supply the national grid with over 60 percent of national electric power consumption.
The basin is therefore crucial to the national economy. Besides being one among the national grain baskets, the catchment zones drain into the Mtera, Kihanzi and Kidatu hydro-electric power generation dams.
But the picture and state of affairs of ecological sustainability in the Ruaha basin is not as rosy downstream as it appears in the hills of Kilolo District. Downstream, it is a sad story of an environmental disaster.
But the cost and implication of the environmental catastrophe is enormous to the ecology and the economy as well proportionately.
Poor farming methods, population explosion, wanton destruction of the environment particularly within the hundreds of smaller catchment basins, water diversion and other adverse economic activities have culminated in the drop of water levels downstream at alarming pace.
It is because of the worrying state of affairs in the basin, that the World Wild Fund-UK (WWF) began mooted and funds an environmental conservation project to save the Ruaha basin and its water catchment areas already under assault by human activity.
The Programme Coordinator WWF – Ruaha Water Programme, Petro Masolwa says since its inception, in 2005, the 5-year project has recorded remarkable succession against a myriad of bottlenecks.
WWF are implementing the project in collaboration with the ministry of water and the community at various levels.
”For the project to succeed we had to education the community to realise the danger in unsustainable use of water and destruction of the catchment areas and that is the sure reason behind the success of the project because it is now owned by the community, not the government or WWF,” said Masolwa.
The project has saved various water catchment areas that were already under threat of extinction in the Kilolo and Iringa Rural districts.
Masolwa said despite initial resentments from the community, the involvement of everybody give the initiative a sense of ownership and participation in sustainable utilisation and reclaiming of the already destroyed ecosystem.
Farming water user association have been formed at various levels. The associations work in liaison with the local government.
At the district level the coordinator said the Capacity Integrated Water Management team is multidisplinary, bringing on board all the stakeholders.
Addressing members of the Journalist Environment Association of Tanzania (JET), on a tour of the region to assess the state of the environment, Masolwa said the object of the programme was to ensure that by 2010 there would be a multidisciplinary integrated river basin management team.
’’Our desire and hope is that by the end of our programme, there will be effective management of the water resources at the district levels and this should be in line with national water management policy,’’ said an optimistic Masolwa.
At the same time Masolwa was hopeful that the work and survey conducted in the course of the project implementation would establish the actual cause of the alarming drop in the water levels and the flow of water in the entire River Ruaha system.
The project also targets to create the requisite awareness among the local community and the local governments on crucial environmental concerns that are pertinent.
But as the project progresses it is important to consider the strategy importance of the Ruaha River Basin, not only to the local community, but to the entire nation.
The basin controls the pulse rate of the nation’s economy as an agriculturally productive zone whose agrarian potential is yet to be exploited fully.
Second, the entire economy particularly the industrial sectors relays on the power generated from the region to operate.
The shortfall in power generation occasioned by a drop in the water levels at the dams in region has tremendously impacted on the economy with the growth of the economy back-pedalling in growth by 17 percent, according to the Central Bank of Tanzania.
It is this backdrop that the sustainability of the Ruaha River system ought to be a priority of all and sundry.
Environmentalist, the government and the community ought to strive to save this ecosystem that is under severe attack, and on verge of destruction by the humanity.
The white monkey and the white giraffe are in an exclusive but growing club rare species getting costly protection even as the world faces what may be the worst wave of extinctions since the dinosaurs.
But in the region, where these species are peculiar nothing is being done to save them.
The Tanzania government ought to be hailed for putting emphasis on environmental conservation.
But what should be realised is that legislation and policies may not be sufficient. There must be a deliberate move towards pragmatism.
Governments in rich nations sometimes write virtual blank cheques to protect exotic animals even as thousands of less glamorous creatures and plants slide silently into oblivion. We should not go this path.
Many experts say it is impossible to set a ceiling on the value of a species and that willingness to pay may be widening, posing risks for businesses like mining, industry or logging that affect the habitats of rare animals or plants.
Indeed, the unabated destruction of the environment means destruction of man himself.
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