Serving People, Preserving Nature

Lettie Mathebula wakes up every morning to prepare maize porridge for her family. She gets her maize from the wild and cooks it using firewood. Water is drawn from a nearby well that fills up partially depending on the rainfall.

Nature is Lettie’s local hypermart. But will Lettie be able to continue grocery-shopping like she always has?

To help answer this question, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) is taking stock of ecosystems at the local, regional and global levels.

It’s like a complete health check-up for Mother Earth; only this time, her children are beside her in the doctor’s room – governments, communities, indigenous peoples and the average Jamal or Jo Yin.

A subset of the MA is the Southern African Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (SafMA) that is being undertaken at different scales in southern Africa. The first is a regional assessment of the whole southern African region, roughly the part of Africa south of the Equator.

Then, there are assessments of the three major river basins in the region: the Gariep River in South Africa, the Zambezi River in Zimbabwe and Mozambique and the Okavango River in Angola, Namibia and Botswana. Finally, numerous local assessments are also carried out within each river basin.

The SafMA project is carried out at different levels of ecosystems to ensure that neither “the forest nor the trees” are missed.

SafMA is set up in a collaborative manner, involving scientists from Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe and the United States, and over eight different institutions in these countries.

An Advisory Committee representing users and stakeholders guides the project, and reviews the results. In true collaborative style, local Africans who are directly affected by ecosystem changes, like Lettie, are brought into the process to chip in with their expertise and experiences.

SafMA has completed a 6-month old trial assessment as a preface to the main core of the assessment work. The conditions of three basic “ecosystem services” were examined: fresh water, fuel wood and cereal crops.

An interesting finding was that by looking at one of these services at the regional level gives a very different picture when it is looked at the local level. For example, on average, everyone in southern Africa may appear to have enough water but certain areas have more than enough water, while others experience water shortages.

The SafMA pilot assessment also explored two possible scenarios for the future of southern Africa. One scenario was based on the new programme of African governments, called NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa’s Development).

The other scenario was called Patchwork Africa which is a projection based on “business as usual”. Some countries will experience a world of difference between now and 2030, depending on the scenario – thus, how we manage ecosystems and respond to the changes, including through the decisions of governments and other parties, determines whether South Africans will face a bright or bleak future.

The full work of SafMA is now underway, and is planned for completion by the end of 2003. In 2004, these results will undergo two rounds of review by experts, and will contribute to the main reports of the MA.

More importantly, by providing better and more relevant scientific information for decision-makers in southern Africa, SafMA will contribute to improving the lives of people like Lettie Mathebula.

Tagged as: Environment, writing