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Africa News afrol News
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Africa News afrol News
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afrol.com, 25 September - Namibian Deputy Minister of Environment and Tourism, Peter Ilonga, has announced that the Forest Bill, which seeks to replace the outdated Preservation of Trees and Forests Ordinance of 1952 and the 1968 Forest Act, is long overdue. “The Bill is badly needed to stem the current spate of illegal cutting and selling of forest produce." - The current pieces of legislation do not sufficiently penalise transgressors, the Deputy Minister stressed when he tabled the Bill in the National Assembly. In 1992, Cabinet approved the National Forest Policy, which proposes new roles for government and approaches to forest management and conservation, stressing participation of local communities and the private sector. The Deputy Minister said that two national workshops were conducted where various ministries were represented to discuss the essential policy and legislative issues regarding the Forest Bill. “The Bill has obtained support of major land use ministries such as Agriculture, Lands, Regional and Local Government and Housing and Justice and Attorney General. The Bill empowers communities to manage woodlands and to share the benefits from management - a very welcome development indeed,” he noted. The Deputy Minister added that the Bill supports and is compatible with government policy on decentralisation because it recognises regional forestry councils, local fire management communities and community-based forest reserves. It (Bill) is badly needed to support the implementation of forest policy through its major instrument—the forestry strategic plan of 1996. He said the piece of legislation, upon becoming an Act, would support environmental protection and, as an example, requires that environmental impact assessments be done before the establishment of plantations and other activities that interfere with natural vegetation such as large-scale bush clearing activities. The country's major environmental problems, as assessed by the The World Conservation Union (IUCN), center around the continued threat of desertification (a threat faced by every semi-arid country); water mismanagement; a growing population; and a protected area system that does not sufficiently protect the country's non-desert habitats. Deforestation is closely connected to these problems and poses a root problem. Before Namibia gained independence from South Africa in 1990, its environment suffered considerable damage, particularly in the agricultural sector, where blacks were forced onto overcrowded communal lands while white farmers were allowed to overgraze and degrade land in commercial farming districts, a practice supported rather than corrected by the government. Since independence, however, environmental organisations agree that Namibia has taken large steps toward improving its environment.
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