Ramadhani Kupaza
26 January 2008
opinion
Arusha — The Tanzania government of the day appreciates the importance of environmental integrity as a pre-requirement for sustainable development.
This statement is supported by the fact that the government introduced a full Ministry of the Environment for the first time two years ago. The gray area is that the current Ministry's instruments for managing the environment tend to be non-participatory and reactive rather than pro-active. Use of non-participatory and reactive approaches in isolation reminds of management by crisis.
A quick assessment reveals that the Ministry's existing environmental management instruments are regulatory. The Webster's Dictionary defines the word regulation as "A rule or order having the force of law issued by an executive authority of a government." It implies limited community participation. In addition, rules and orders do not provide good incentives to make people use the environment with precaution. Precautionary principle is one of the core environmental management principles.
To be sure, regulatory environmental management instruments are important and binding. Lest we forget, the courts still hold that ignorance is not an excuse to break the law. Therefore, it is wise for individuals to understand and comply with the requirements of the Ministry's environmental management instruments. Non-compliance means breaking the law. Needless to mention, fighting against the law can be tedious and costly.
The Ministry's environment management instruments include the National Environmental Management Council (NEMC), the National Environment Policy, Environmental Impact Assessment Guidelines for Tanzania and the Environment Act. NEMC can be consulted easily since it has a Branch office in Arusha. The National Environment Policy of 1998 and the Environment Act of 2004 can be purchased at the government bookshop which is located at the Arusha International Conference Center (AICC).
Does the focus on regulations mean that the Ministry of the Environment cannot develop participatory and pro-active environment management instruments? That is far from it. The Ministry only needs to organize its stakeholders to develop a National Environment Programme (NEP). The programme may focus on community based environment-related poverty reduction activities as envisaged by other government agencies such as the Forest and Beekeeping Division.
Since the environment is all encompassing, the framework for NEP may be developed following the process which is used to develop frameworks for sustainable Cities Programmes (SCP) which are sponsored jointly by UN-Habitat and the United Nations Environment programme (UNEP). SCPs are conducted successfully in more than 60 cities in the World including Arusha. The programme is better known nationally and locally as UDEM (Urban Development and Environment management). UDEM gave birth to Sustainable Arusha Programme.
Like UDEM, NEP would comprise three parts in the form of guidelines. First are guidelines for preparing documents that describe the environmental profiles or outlines of existing resources in the rural settlements. Second are guidelines for environmental management information systems that would generate relevant information to feed into the environmental profile preparation process. Third are guidelines for assessing performance measures of the various strategies to enhance sustainable development.
In particular, NEP would provide guidelines to assess the extent to which various socio-economic activity sectors demand or destroy the existing environmental resources. The programme would also address how environmental hazards such as floods or earth quakes may destroy development infrastructure. Finally, NEP would assess effectiveness of existing measures which have been put in place to prevent environmental destruction and to resolve conflict of resource use among socio-economic activity sectors.
Indicators of programme success would include existence of documents describing environmental profiles for rural settlements. The documents may reflect binding by-laws which are designed specifically to address environmental issues in rural areas. In addition, there would be increased and diversified stock of literature on the environment in Arusha bookshops.
For example, the main bookshops in town would be stocked with books on comprehensive environmental management issues in addition to the many field guide books on nature that address specialized aspects of the environment. NEP would also stimulate establishment of institutions of learning in Arusha which teach environmental management as a profession. Currently, only ESAMI offers environmental management training as part of the institution's Master of Business Course. This is inadequate.
Arusha may also witness availability of wild meat for sale if NEP encourages the many hunting companies to process the bush meat resulting from trophy hunting. Apparently, all the bush meat is currently left to rot in the bush after hunting. Surely this is not right for a poor country. Incidentally, even a developed country like America requires companies in that country to process every piece of bush meat after hunting.
But, it is not necessary for the private sector such as businesses to wait for government to develop a national environment programme before taking action to conserve the environment. It is already happening at the world stage. For example, the World Economic Forum (WEF) is currently discussing environmental issues at its Annual Meeting that is taking place in Davos, Switzerland. The Forum provides an unrivalled platform for leaders to shape the global environment agenda at the start of each year. At its core this is the world's largest gathering of business leaders, along with government, media and civil society. Following the UN's Bali Summit in December, 2007 global warming and the search for alternatives to fossil fuels will be at the top of the Davos agenda. It goes to show that the environment is everybody's agenda.
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