It took us eight years in Zimbabwe to begin addressing the problems of environmental degradation around refugee camps. When the first influx of Mozambicans came in 1984, there was little time to think of anything but food and shelter. The camps were deliberately located in the remoter corners of comparatively well-wooded communal lands, with as much firewood as the refugees could possibly consume, and their environmental impact simply was not an issue. No-one today would describe these areas as well-wooded, least of all a local Zimbabwean living within their vicinity.
It did not take long for the degradation process to begin. By 1986, there were some 60,000 refugees in these camps and UNHCR had allocated a small budget for firewood provision. Perhaps if the budget had been bigger, with more attention paid to the logistics of transport, and perhaps if the firewood had been supplied in conjunction with a strict set of regulations regarding firewood harvesting by the refugees, the problem could have been avoided. Perhaps. In fact, once the transport bills had been paid, the quantities of firewood delivered represented a negligible proportion of the total consumption, and tended to be viewed as an unexpected bonus when distributed. It made almost no difference at all.
The problem escalated. Trees disappeared and with them the topsoil. Environmental rehabilitation became the most talked-about non-event in the refugee programme and we all wondered when it would stop. In 1991, there were close to 100,000 refugees (a figure that subsequently rose to nearly 150,000). Women refugees were recorded making 20km round trips to collect wood. When one was weighed with a 90kg headload at the entrance to Tongogara camp, somebody finally realised that the situation had got out of hand.
Birth of the Fuelwood Crisis Consortium
It was an NGO involved with elderly refugees that made the first tentative moves. Desperate to reduce the burden of fuelwood collecting on their beneficiaries, they began investigating the option of fuel-saving stoves. Their problem was that, whereas giving stoves to the elderly but not to any of the other refugees was clearly futile, they had no mandate to extend their coverage. As it was a problem affecting all the organisations in the refugee programme, it seemed sensible, if not immediately practicable, to formulate a collaborative response. After a difficult labour, the Fuelwood Crisis Consortium (FCC) was born, a consortium comprising over 20 agencies: almost all the refugee-assisting agencies, as well as some of the government and non-governmental bodies involved elsewhere in environmental management.
By late 1991, we had the structure and the momentum to do something. The question was what. The cost of transporting either firewood or an alternative fuel source was prohibitive, and we were evidently going to have to maximise the existing resources. Fuel-saving stoves were receiving unfavourable press at the time, being based on the notion of a gap between fuelwood supply and demand that did not always exist. In this case, however, it did. Deforestation around a refugee settlement, particularly where, as in Zimbabwe, refugees are strictly forbidden to clear land for cultivation, arises from the need for fuel and for construction materials. Happily most of the timber for construction was being supplied by UNHCR and a number of consumption studies clearly showed that it was fuelwood shortages that were causing the problem.
After three months of field trials involving a number of different locally available stoves, the refugee participants selected a portable single pot stove called the Tsotso. Already the most widely-disseminated stove in Zimbabwe, the Tsotso is capable of achieving substantial savings in excess of 30%. However, where normally an owner would have made a financial investment in the stove, we were hoping to achieve similar results though distributing the stoves cost-free.
Afforestation and regeneration
Although having already broken the fundamental rule of stove dissemination (ie do not give them out for free), we were quick to hoist aboard another lesson from past experiences: demand management is more successful when directly linked to supply enhancement. With firewood supply already ruled out on the grounds of expense (the total cost of supplying sufficient firewood for all the refugees' needs was calculated to be in the region of US$3.5 million per year), the alternative was afforestation and controlled regeneration of remaining woodlands.
Tree planting around refugee camps is fraught with problems. Refugees have little incentive to participate; if they did, they would be doing it already. Natural regeneration is the more attractive option but assumes woodland has not been degraded beyond a certain point. In this case, FCC opted for a judicious combination of the two.
The balance between meeting the needs of the refugees and those of the local Zimbabweans was heavily weighted in favour of the locals. It was accepted that the bulk of the deforestation had been caused by refugees in an attempt to meet their needs but it was also recognised that very few of these needs could be immediately addressed through afforestation because of the limited time available. The locals, on the other hand, had all the needs that had previously been met from these forests, and would continue to have them long after the refugees had returned to their homes.
The first stage was a participatory appraisal exercise with both refugees and locals to determine species preferences and to define a broad afforestation strategy. The refugees, whilst admitting poor motivation for involvement in this programme, felt they would benefit, after repatriation, from training, and could provide the bulk of the seedlings required for transplanting. 120 refugees were therefore trained over a year in appropriate forestry techniques and the camp-based nurseries in which they were receiving training produced more than 200,000 seedlings.
The management of the remaining woodlands and their enrichment through transplanting was almost entirely conducted by the local communities. An institutional management structure was established, based on traditional lines of authority, and areas were set aside, fenced and designated as regeneration sites. Techniques employed to encourage regrowth included the use of appropriate harvesting techniques (coppicing, pollarding and pruning), water harvesting through the digging of semi-circular trenches around trees, and the interspersing of existing woodlands with nitrogen-rich legumes (leucaena and acacia sp).
Extensive support was given to the local schools. A textbook on the raising of indigenous trees was distributed, accompanied by training for all teachers. Material inputs for the raising of nurseries and the transplanting of seedlings were provided, and some 40 school nurseries were developed which, between them, resulted in the transplanting of over 100,000 trees.
Impact of stove distribution
Within the camps, nearly 17,000 stoves were distributed to individual households and institutional cooking points. A cadre of refugee women were trained as stove monitors and their target was to visit each individual stove owner on a monthly basis to encourage use of the stove. Their efforts were supported, surprisingly effectively, by a group who, blending traditional dance and educational drama, played regularly to enormous audiences.
An independent study carried out by students from the University of Zimbabwe revealed a 29% reduction in fuelwood consumption over the two years of the progamme. The exact figure should be treated with caution (as should all fuelwood consumption studies) but it clearly shows that there were significant reductions in consumption as a result of the stove's dissemination.
Lessons learned
The Consortium's programme began winding down in April 1994, two years after its inception. It was already clear that the programme's timeframe had been far too short but we felt we had to adhere to the original schedule. By this stage, there were a number of salient lessons that we had absorbed. These included:
i) Fuel-saving stoves can reduce consumption. However, in view of the many other uses for woody products, it is by no means guaranteed that this translates directly to lower levels of deforestation.
ii) The most effective way to limit consumption of fuelwood for cooking is undoubtedly to have all cooking undertaken centrally on large fuel-efficient stoves. Our experience shows that daily consumption per capita is reduced by at least 80% under this regime, although of course it has its own (some would say insurmountable) problems.
iii) Whilst it is difficult to involve refugees in tree planting activities outside the camp, they are certainly able to undertake extensive tree planting within. This is most successfully achieved if efforts are focused on the individual homesteads and with quick-growing fruit trees (eg paw-paw). These can also make a valuable nutritional supplement.
iv) There is an inherent contradiction in the concept of rehabilitating deforested areas around refugee camps. The first part of this is that, whereas it is the refugees (and, indirectly, the organisations that support them) which have caused the deforestation, it is the locals that must live with the results and who must therefore take the initiative to reforest them (if such an initiative is to be sustainable). Following on from this, it is often the case that locals are more interested in tree planting for commercial gain (ie through woodlots and fruit orchards) than in environmental rehabilitation.
It therefore becomes necessary at an early stage to attempt to reconcile the differing requirements of income generation and environmental rehabilitation, in such a way that the immediate needs of the local community are met without compromising the long term objectives of rehabilitation.
v) The improved management of existing woodlands yields far swifter results than the planting of new trees. If active management strategies are employed from the outset, there is a great deal that can be done to offset deforestation. Simple strategies include the regulation of foraging so that it occurs in different areas on a rotational basis, thus allowing each area time to regenerate between harvests. Similarly, if certain areas, strategically dotted throughout the surrounding lands, are designated `no cutting zones', they can be used as the genetic banks for the eventual regeneration of the entire location once repatriation has taken place.
vi) The existence of an artificial incentives policy is thoroughly counter-productive to refugee afforestation efforts. Where refugees are employed as labourers, they should be waged; where refugees are participating in a training programme, they should not be waged. This would allow for refugees to be employed as nursery attendants, tree guards and forestry extension workers without interfering in the training programme.
vii) The ecological welfare of the land surrounding a refugee camp is of extremely low priority to newly arrived refugees. The transitory nature of their situation, the fact that they often have limited access rights to these lands, and of course the fact that they are often in poor health, malnourished and traumatised combine to reduce environmental issues to the barely relevant. It therefore requires a concerted effort early on to ensure that refugees are aware of the social costs that will soon accrue to them once their surrounding natural resource base is exhausted.
viii) Where literacy levels are low, traditional means of awareness raising, notably drama, music and storytelling, tend to have the greatest impact. However, for best results, it is essential that awareness campaigns, like skills training programmes, are tied to adult literacy efforts.
Return of the refugees
Although the peace agreement in Mozambique was signed in 1992, the repatriation programme did not begin in earnest until early 1994. Initially reluctant to return to the uncertainties of life in their home country, the refugees were slow to register and it seemed as if the exercise would not be completed until mid-way through 1995. But then the process accelerated and suddenly the refugees have almost all gone. We could not match their happiness but the sudden opportunity for post-repatriation environmental rehabilitation was one we joyfully seized.
In July 1994 we began a three month study to assess the extent of the environmental damage resulting from the refugee settlements. Comparing before and after aerial photographs and verifying these with soil and vegetation surveys on the ground, we were able to estimate, albeit loosely, the quantities of woodland degraded. We then undertook a lengthy Participatory Rural Appraisal exercise in each of the affected communities to enable them to articulate their own future needs from their natural resource base and together to draw up the strategy for meeting these. Matching these to government plans for the future of the areas, we have now drawn up a five year rehabilitation programme.
Conclusion
Fuelwood Crisis Consortium completed its mandate in September 1994 and has been replaced by SAFIRE, the Southern Alliance For Indigenous Resources. SAFIRE is a similar collaborative initiative, drawing on the same pool of resources and experience as the Consortium. This time, however, we hope we have created a lasting organisation, one that will complete the rehabilitation of refugee-impacted areas in Zimbabwe and retain its knowledge and experience for use in refugee situations elsewhere in the world.
A young child was once overheard by his startled parents to say that
`the problem with homogeneity is that it makes the milk taste funny'.
Personally, I am as wary of generalisations and certainly do not believe
that all our experiences are relevant to every refugee situation. But some
of the lessons we learnt are. One is that we, as refugee assisting
organisations, can work together for the better (few of us in Zimbabwe
would have agreed with that in 1991!). Another hometruth, as old as
Confucius, is that the longer we leave it, the harder it becomes to solve.
Most importantly, though, is the hard fact that those of us who support
refugees have the moral responsibility to address the environmental impact
they inevitably have. We would surely rue the day when a nation closes its
borders to refugees on the grounds of ecological degradation.
Gus Le Breton was programme manager for the Fuelwood Crisis
Consortium from its inception and is now programme coordinator for SAFIRE.
SAFIRE is commencing a five year rehabilitation programme in the
refugee-impacted areas of Zimbabwe and has also been asked by the
Zimbabwean Government to undertake natural resource management programmes
in other parts of the country.
July 1997