The Daily News (Harare)
Oscar Nkala Staff Reporter
27 May 2003
For Anna Mathathu, it is incomprehensible that the protein-rich mopani caterpillar could be facing extinction in the Matabeleland region if urgent steps are not taken to conserve its habitat.
All her life, the 56-year-old villager has relied on the seasonal delicacy to supplement her meagre diet.
But it has become obvious to her, and countless other residents of Matobo district - located about 70 kilometres south of Bulawayo - that unless conservation strategies are adopted, the mopani caterpillar will not accompany future rains as it has done for decades.
The delicacy is known to the Ndebele-speaking people of Matabeleland as amacimbi , to the Kalanga as mahonja or mashonja and to the Shona as madora.
Encased in a tough and spiky skin that protects its nutritional flesh, the mopani caterpillar has gained popularity as a delicacy in the countries of southern and central Africa.
To the rural communities of Matabeleland, where it thrives, it has become an important source of food.
But a brisk trade in the delicacy is threatening its survival and worrying villagers, who say there is no regulatory system to control the mopani caterpillar business that has become a source of livelihood for hundreds of people from within and outside Matobo district.
"That (threat) is because people from outside the district have been over-exploiting the resource without considering that the caterpillars need to regenerate every year. Such people care more about the profits they derive from the resource than its sustainability," Mathathu told The Daily News.
The villager, who is from the Manyane area of Matobo district, added: "Even the prime amacimbi-producing parts of the district still do not have the caterpillars despite the rains this year. We fear they may not appear next year.
"It could be the end of amacimbi in the district. As long as outsiders who are not concerned with the local environment and who do not understand the importance of the worms to the economy of this district are allowed to over-harvest the resource, we can be sure that we will not have any amacimbi to talk about next year."
Villagers say the steady decline in the supply of amacimbi began three years ago when groups of women from Bulawayo and Harare began invading the area to buy the mopani worms, leading to over-harvesting of the delicacy.
Traders from Zimbabwe's main urban areas export the caterpillars to Botswana, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), South Africa and Zambia.
The caterpillars were initially taken to the DRC in 1998, where they were an instant hit, with Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa and Zambia also becoming major consumers.
The absence of regulations or legislation to control the harvesting of the mopani worms has made it impossible for rural communities in Matabeleland to limit the trade in the delicacy, some villagers told The Daily News.
Canaan Ncube, a ward development committee member in the Donkwe area, said: "The problem is that there are no local by-laws stating who should harvest, where and how much.
"So, there is no balance between the demand for the product and its regeneration, and this endangers the sustainability of the whole trade locally and regionally."
He said the harvesting of amacimbi had become so commercialised that the mopani tree, the caterpillar's habitat and source of food, was endangered every rainy season.
"People fell down decades-old mopani trees just to get a kilogramme of immature caterpillars," he noted. "In the process, the habitat is destroyed and once the immature caterpillars are harvested, there is no hope of others re-appearing in the same area."
Although local authorities in whose areas the caterpillars thrive have been advised to introduce by-laws to manage harvesting as well as to safeguard the environment and the caterpillars' habitat, most councils in Matabeleland South have yet to implement such regulations.
A Kezi businessman involved in the caterpillar trade pointed out: "In Matobo, anyone can come and camp in the bush. They burn down the trees, take the amacimbi away and leave the producers of this delicacy with multiple environmental problems.
"Trees die, and the fires they make have always turned into veldfires. So, we are the net losers in the exploitation of our own resource."
Knowell Dube, the Matebeleland South provincial natural resources' officer, told The Daily News that the authorities in the province were aware of the destruction of habitat and were attempting to come up with solutions.
"We are aware of the over-harvesting and attendant environmental problems," he said.
"We are working with a number of councils to form local groups that will monitor the harvesting and protect the trees. The theory is that given incentives like exclusive harvesting permits, villagers can take better care of their trees and protect the mopani worm from over-harvesting. But we need regulatory support from the councils to achieve this."
But he said so far only Gwanda, Bulilimamangwe and Mangwe districts had come up with distinguishable local interest groups, which were being educated by his department about the importance of resource-exploitation monitoring and habitat conservation.
"In Gwanda district, we provide advisory services to monitoring and licencing committees in ward 17. But it is not easy for the department to monitor environmental problems where there are no local by-laws to refer to," Dube said.
Technical assistance to affected rural district councils is also being provided by the Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE), created to help rural communities sustainably utilise natural resources.
Judas Nyaguse, an information officer with CAMPFIRE, said his organisation was not directly involved with mopani-producing communities but was giving technical assistance to councils to empower communities to take control of their resources.
"Our business is to advise RDCs (rural district councils) in the building of capacities for resource-control. But we do not have any programme on amacimbi exploitation in Matobo District," he said.
"We are currently working with the Bulilimamangwe and Mangwe councils to set up processing factories at Madlambudzi and Brunapeg," he added.
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