As we grapple with the scourge of climate change, world-wide forest destruction, plunder and droughts, our forests in the developing world are also not being spared.
By Peter Makwanya
It is now time to have a paradigm shift and focus our attention more in capacitating and empowering our children for sustainable forest governance techniques, necessary for the future protection of the forests and trees in order to sustain their lives.
As we do that, our children need to be educated that, people are for nature against the belief that nature is for the people. Many developing countries have National Tree Planting Days, Zimbabwe included.
As we draw nearer towards the National Tree Planting Day, let’s teach the children not to memorise this important day on our national calendar only without teaching them the significance of planting trees in the first place. Children need to be cultured that trees play a fundamental role in their lives and for the livelihoods of their countries.
This is significant as children grow up knowing how and why they should become environmental stewards in the first place. A critical analysis of the national tree planting programme at the moment, would make children excuse themselves that this national programme is not for them but for the adults, therefore it does not concern them.
Tree planting should shift from being occasional or just ceremonial, and as such, pupils would wait for this national day to come, for them to think about trees or to talk about trees, then forget, while the process is supposed to be on-going and continuous. That people place their survival on forests, needs to have a paradigm shift. As the situation stands, who in Zimbabwe is mandated to champion tree growing or forest regeneration between the Environmental Management Agency and The Forestry Commission? Is it the first, the later, both or none of the above?
If these two bodies are actively involved, then we would want to know, how much either of them nurture sustainable forest management in the current stakeholders participating in the national tree planting discourse. It is also significant in this regard to know how much they involve or promote the participation of children in this regard. Of course, they are not there for windowdressing, they are indeed doing something, but the public may not be aware hence they need to know.
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As advocates for environmental growth and sustainability, we still believe that children, in their tender ages and wisdom, need to participate in tree growing programmes, as early as possible, to prepare them for the future when they will be complete guardians of nature.
To develop such skills in children, we need to do more than just teach them to read, write and work out mathematical problems. Children need an all-round support in environmental growth and sustainability. This shouldn’t be holistic in principle only, but in practice as well. This discourse can also not be forced upon the national curriculum, if it is not for this proposition and our role is to continue with appropriate pillars of engagement and advocacy.
For quite some time, people have been directly or indirectly surviving on forest resources, and as much as the people owe their livelihoods to the forests, it must be sustainable rather than haphazard or eco-freaking. It is also significant that the school curricular resonate well with the manner in which pupils engage in forest and environmental affairs. That is to say, the scientific and environmental roles of forests should be purely fundamental and empowering at the same time.
The roles of trees in minimising flooding and erosion as well as helping water to sink under the ground need always not be over-emphasized as it is practically a collective given.
The forests are home to an endless variety of micro-organisms that continuously nurture the soil and improve tree growth.
Forests are also home to the world’s carbon sinks and they have a role to absorb carbon dioxide as well as purify it into usable gas.
The critical point here is not just to make children plant trees but why are they doing so is the major question. Against this background, and as we speak, many African forests are on the verge of disappearing through illegal or legal commercial logging.
Quite a number of rich and influential countries are preserving their home forests and biodiversity while conniving with political elites in the developing countries to destroy their children’s legacy.
If these elders are not serious about conserving their forests then forest governance should be done in the best interest of the children. Children in this regard, should have a sustainable role to play as guardians of nature because they are the future.
Children’s forest governance programmes should place nursery regeneration on the forefront as this is important for long term adaptation programmes. This also becomes part of their forest universal thought and stewardship, sustainable enough to mould them into complete and absolute guardians of nature.
As such, it would be difficult to take our children from the forests as they would be like forests themselves. Children also become a consortium of local forestry capacity building blocks in order to strengthen and champion the natural forest cause in the communities they live. Children should be capacitated on how they can fight against deaths of forests especially during drought periods.
Without forest cover and sustainable tree management cultures, the countries’ landscapes become dull, uninspiring and less-impressive. All their beauty and glamour becomes erased from the vocabulary of sustainability.
Forest regeneration programmes should not only be based on the national calendar but should be tailor-made for multi-sectorial approaches, championed by government departments, civil society, non-governmental organisations and schools.
Lastly, stakeholders who have interest in forest harvesting projects need to be licensed to do so in order to make the whole process humane, organised and sustainable.
