Environment
Greening of industry in the Zambezi Basin

afrol News, 20 November - By Hastings Chikoko and Kim Le Roux (SARDC)

A process towards exposing the Zambezi basin's industrial sector to environmental issues is under way in Malawi as part of the environmental education initiative carried out by IUCN (The World Conservation Union) and facilitated by the Regional Environmental Education Centre of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

Supported by IUCN's Networking and Capacity-building Programme (NETCAB), this intervention aims to enable industry to respond to environmental issues and risks in the context of their work through the application of preventive environmental management processes.

The State of the Environment Zambezi Basin 2000 indicates that industrial pollution and drying floodplains have caused habitat damage and species loss.

Pollution from industrial waste is increasing due to urbanization within the Zambezi catchment area, including Blantyre, Harare and Lusaka and the mushrooming tourist facilities along the river basin, discharge effluents into the river and its tributaries.

Looking at the Zambezi basin wetlands alone, Lenka Thamae, IUCN's SADC Wetlands Project Co-ordinator, observes that the many large settlements and associated industries in the basin are located adjacent to reliable water sources, which unfortunately also possess important wetland ecozones for the Zambezi basin.

The State of the Environment Zambezi Basin 2000 records that about 20 million people, about 52 percent of the population in the basin, are concentrated around wetlands, resulting in declining wetland productivity in the Zambezi floodplains due to a combination of factors:

• aquatic weed infestation; 
• chemical poisoning, especially pesticides;
• infrastructure development, such as dams; and
• over-exploitation of wetland resources.

Thamae pointed out that uncontrolled industrial development expansion leads to encroachment into wetlands, especially in mining operations, manufacturing and processing of agricultural products.

- Due to the capacity of wetland ecosystems to retain and naturally purify effluent, industries have at times over-utilized wetland systems for disposal of waste-water which contains highly toxic substances such as heavy metals that threaten the integrity of the wetland ecosystem, Thamae said.

Industrial pollutants from poorly designed solid waste dumpsites find their way into the environment through direct discharge and leaching into aquifers. According to the State of the Environment Zambezi Basin 2000, studies along the Zambezi Valley found that metal (60 percent and batteries (10 percent) dominated the industrial solid waste in Kariba.

In the area surrounding the Kafue river more than 93,000 tonnes of industrial waste are produced annually, most of which finds its way into the Kafue and eventually, the Zambezi river.

Autman Tembo, Malawi's acting director for occupational safety and health, agrees with Thamae that industry in Malawi does contribute to pollution of rivers. "This (environmental education) initiative of IUCN goes a long way to bring awareness of the environmental consequences of some of the industrial activities," added Autman Tembo, whose department is co-ordinating this environmental education intervention at national level in collaboration with both the Rhodes University in South Africa and the Malawi Polytechnic.

- We have already conducted some training workshops that brought together people from a number of industries including textiles, beverages, cement, sugar milling as well as the directorate of occupational safety and health, says Tembo.

After the first workshop participants were assigned to carry out an initial environmental review of their industries. They identified environmental issues or risks and analyzed them in terms of their causes and impacts in relation to issues of sustainability.

- This was an eye-opener to most of the industries as they uncovered some environmental problems that they thought were non-existent, said Tembo. "This is what made management of these companies get more interested in the training course."

Through this environmental education intervention, participants were able to:

• complete an initial environmental review and analysis of environmental issues or risks of relevance to a local industry setting;
• demonstrate an understanding of sustainable development and preventative environmental management processes within local and global contexts;
• design and apply environmental management processes, such as cleaner production;
• environmental auditing, in the context of a local industry setting; and
• implement a small scale action project to improve environmental management in an industry setting, using environmental education and training to facilitate the implementation of the action project.

- The assignment given under this initiative will require participants to identify environmental management processes currently taking place in their industries, said Tembo. "Participants will be required to develop and implement a small-scale action plan to respond to an environmental issue or risk in their industries."

Other experts who have assisted in the course preparation include Martin Mkandawire from Malawi, Kathy Stiles from the IUCN Commission on Education and Communication and Heila Lotz-Sisitka from Rhodes University in South Africa.

Recommendations for environmental education policy in Malawi will be drawn from these experiences, which will end with a policy workshop in October. The whole process and its contributions to policy development in Malawi will be documented in a case study of the course's process as well as its contribution to the development of environmental education policy in Malawi.

Case studies will also be developed for two countries in the Zambezi Basin, in Botswana and Zimbabwe, as well as in two others outside the basin, South Africa and Mauritius.

By Hastings Chikoko and Kim Le Roux, Southern African Research and Documentation Centre (SARDC)

 

© Hastings Chikoko and Kim Le Roux / Southern African Research and Documentation Centre (SARDC).  This article can be reproduced with credit to SARDC and the author.    You can contact us at mail@afrol.com