Muonde Trust, Zimbabwe operates in the Mazvihwa community, which, like so many places in Africa, is richly endowed with both minerals and cultural heritage. Their sacred places are being tampered with by local and international forces. For example, one of their sacred groves was being threatened by other community members and the local council which had planned a business centre there. On a larger scale, Mazvihwa is experiencing the expanding impact of mining. At one community feedback meeting after the ALI a lot of emotions where fuelled as the community aired out complaints about a diamond mine. People were saying the company had robbed them because it did not fulfil the promises it made and it displaced their people and they do not know how they are going to live. There was speculation that there is another foreign mining company which is planning to mine emeralds in one of their sacred mountains. In another community an initiative has been started for mapping and then restoring sacred groves. A total of 2500 men, 3000 women, 1300 boys and 1500 girls who live in the area will benefit from these two initiatives. A tree nursery for the sacred grove has been established and the local council agreed to stop giving people land in the sacred forest.
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IMPACTS AND CHALLENGES
The biggest result achieved is that community now feel able to demand their rights and to have documents such as the Bio-cultural Community Protocol that give them power. They are also now able to take pride and talk openly about their indigenous beliefs, and if the community can draw successfully on their indigenous beliefs and behaviour it can be a new way of adapting to climate change because of the ways these beliefs build long term relationships to the local ecology. Some of the leaders are now Christians so talking about the sacred places initially sounded demonic to them, but it was possible to bring them in to the broader discussion. During the discussions it came out that their ancestors studied the land and were only growing small grains, and these were the only crops that were compatible to their land and rain patterns. They never suffered persistent droughts. It has been since people started to grow maize and other seed varieties brought by different organizations that require higher rainfall that there is perpetual hunger in that community.
FUTURE
The Muonde GPS team together with selected local leaders are continuing to map all the sacred areas to further the Bio Cultural Protocols. These include wetlands and wells, mountains and cultural sites. We hope that this can match the positive results obtained from mapping the sacred forest. Meanwhile, we await to hear if there will be an advance with the emerald mining proposal, and how our BCPs can help us deal with that.
Contributed by Muonde Trust staff
