Matilda Chitungo (42), a smallholder farmer from Chikukwa community in Manicaland province says the adverse effect of climate change on the livelihoods of smallholder farmers was a wakeup call for the revival of traditional ecological governance systems.
Matilda says before she and other fellow smallholder farmers took a bold move to retrace the journey of their fore parents, they were on the verge of losing all the surrounding water sources. Through this journey of remembering how their parents and grandparents related with their environment, these women have brought about the reinstitution of traditional ecological governance systems, and subsequently reviving water sources.
“Our biggest problem was that of depleting wetlands and loss of ground water for sustaining people, crops and animals during the dry season. Depleted wetlands also meant that we would face droughts and household food insecurity,” says Matilda.
Matilda reveals that human and animal action on wetlands particularly agricultural activities were the main reasons for wetland degradation.
“Before we adopted these wetland protection methods, people would graze their livestock on wetlands and cultivate crops there and this was detrimental to the viability of our wetlands. People also used synthetic fertilisers on these wetlands and they ended up degraded,” she says.
Matilda says water shortages mostly affected the women due to their roles and responsibilities in the home and community.
“As women, this affected us because we are the ones who have a responsibility over the welfare of the family and community in general,” she says.
Matilda says the through the village leadership, and with the coordination of Chikukwa Ecological Land Use Community Trust (CELUCT), a member organization of PELUM Zimbabwe, the community decided to adopt both traditional and modern methods to protect their wetlands.
“We reverted to our traditional methods that our ancestors used to preserve wetlands such as ensuring that swampy areas remain sacred and no farming is done there. We even started awareness raising campaigns to teach people on the importance of wetlands, through coordination of CELUCT and our traditional leadership,” says Matilda.
Patience Sithole (55), who is a programmes officer for CELUCT says there has since been a significant improvement in the state of wetlands in the Chikukwa community.
“Since we started raising awareness on the importance of wetlands and fencing them, there has been an improvement in biodiversity of flora and fauna found in the wetland area,” says Patience.
Patience says CELUCT has supported the protection of close to 200 hectares of wetland in Chikukwa.
“We have been raising awareness and have been proactive in wetland preservation because wetlands promote biodiversity. For example we have fenced close to 200 hectares of wetlands in our area which had been depleted by deforestation and agriculture,” says Patience.
Chikukwa community village head Percy Chikukwa (62) says women in Chikukwa have played an instrumental role in the protection and preservation of wetlands.
“These women have played an important role in the protection of our wetlands. Women are custodians of our traditions and they have ensured that our future generations are aware of the importance of wetlands through teaching future generations about environmental issues using both modern and traditional methods,” says the village head.
The village head encouraged communities to uphold their tradition and culture in order to protect their natural resources.
“We have our traditions that ensure that wetlands and swamps were protected. We should uphold those beliefs because those mechanisms are still relevant and they work, we keep encouraging women to be on the forefront in environmental protection,” he added.