Narratives from a wetland: Sustainable management in Lukanga, Zambia

Abstract

Wetlands are a key livelihood resource in southern Africa. Historically they have been managed using local knowledge systems, but these systems have in many instances been undermined by colonial and postcolonial legal requirements. The IUCN's Ramsar initiative, supported by organisations such as BirdLife International and the WWF, seeks to protect wetland resources. This qualitative study examined the political ecology of the Kapukupuku and Waya areas of the Lukanga wetlands in Zambia, designated a Ramsar site. This designation has given rise to competing ‘narratives’ by politicians and local community leaders over how Lukanga should be managed and used, and the resulting conflict is threatening its sustainability. The paper warns that the various parties' arguments are value-laden and that power asymmetry threatens to exclude poor local communities. Policy must take power interests into account to ensure that developments in the name of the poor really do benefit the poor.

Keywords:

• livelihood
• sustainability
• wetland livelihood
• local knowledge system
• Ramsar site

1. Introduction

We came here to fish. This takes up most of our time. I don't see how we can abandon this livelihood to start watching over cows. (Immigrant Waya fisherman)

Wetlands are a key resource in the livelihood strategies of Africa's poor (see Murombedzi, 1991; Woodhouse et al., 2001; Inocencio et al., 2002; Masiyandima & McCartney, 2004; Haller, 2010). This paper explores how the designation of the Lukanga wetlands as a Ramsar site has accentuated tensions between competing livelihood strategies, pitting political, Lenje and Bemba ‘narratives’ against each other over the meaning of the Ramsar designation and the uses to which the wetlands should be put, and prompting further contestation over the meaning of the designation. The Ramsar designation has reconfigured the arena within which access to, and use of, the wetland is contested, with different stakeholders using different narratives to justify their point of view (Forsyth, 2003). This study emphasises that the ways in which wetlands are perceived as beneficial depends on the observer's stake (see Espeland, 1998, 2000, 2001).

2. The study area

The Lukanga wetlands, part of the Kafue River catchment in Zambia's Central Province, cover 2600 square kilometres (see Figure 1). The two study sites were Kapukupuku and Waya. Kapukupuku lies in the Keembe Constituency, 101 km north of Lusaka, in the Chibombo District of the Liteta Chiefdom. The community comprises 150 households, mainly migrant fishermen and women from elsewhere in Zambia, such as Luapula, Northern and Western Provinces. Migrants have been settling in this area since 1953. Kapukupuku has no infrastructure, but the community have access to school and health facilities in Chibombo District Headquarters, 9 km away. Waya is approximately 50 km west of Kabwe, the provincial headquarters of Kabwe, in Central Province. It is about 188 km north of Lusaka, falling in the Kapiri Mposhi District in the Chipepo Chiefdom. Waya is part of the Kapiri Mposhi constituency and has 642 households.1 The community has two schools, a big health centre, a police post and an office for the Fisheries Department. The economy is dominated by subsistence farming and fishing. At the time of the study, 2007, the Department was attempting to establish a co-management system for the fishery, which included the fishing community. This would enable the fishermen to form their own organisations, to help enforce fishing rules and regulations. The Department hoped that this would result in some measure of self-policing by the fishing communities.

Figure 1: The Lukanga wetlands

The Lenje, who are mostly subsistence farmers in the Lukanga, keeping small herds of cattle and goats, claim to be the ‘local’ residents. They have always supplemented their crop and livestock livelihoods with fishing and traditionally they used to practise the likuwo fishing where families would be allowed to fish in the lagoons with spears and pay a fish levy (kukona) to the chief. Lukanga's riparian communities use the wetlands for fishing and hunting, for collecting non-timber resources such as fibre to make such things as mats and baskets (grass, reeds, vines and papyrus), for indigenous food (fruit, fungi, leaves, nuts, roots and seeds), for clay soil to make pots, and for grazing and wetland farming. The wetlands provide abundant grass for grazing, especially in the dry season, and crops such as maize, cotton, groundnut and sunflower are grown in both the study areas. Along the edges of the lagoons, farmers practise recession crop farming, cultivating in the wet areas left by the receding water in the dry seasons, and high yields have been recorded for such cultivation (ECZ, n.d.). The government's free agricultural input policy at the time of the research further enhanced crop cultivation in both study sites.2

Both Kapukupuku and Waya are settled by immigrant fishermen who also practise a little subsistence agriculture in the uplands. Additional immigrant inflows occurred following the closure of mines in Zambia's Copper Belt in the late 1980s and 1990s. These retrenchees also joined the ranks of the fishermen. Most of the fishermen in the wetlands are Bemba, who sell their fish in Kabwe and Lusaka and along the Copper Belt. Fish is an important source of low priced protein in Central Province and in Zambia as a whole. In 1996, for instance, households in Central Province spent 6% of their household food budget on fish (Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, 2002). The Lukanga wetlands are estimated to produce 1710 tonnes of fish annually. Common fish species caught are tilapia, barbel and catfish.

The Lukanga wetlands were designated a Ramsar site on 11 November 2005, with a Ramsar site reference number of 1580. The designation covers several settlements adjacent to the wetland, including Kapukupuku and Waya. Ramsar sites are governed by the 1971 International Treaty on Wetlands. The stated aim of the Ramsar Convention is ‘the conservation and wise use of all wetlands through local, regional and national actions and international cooperation, as a contribution towards achieving sustainable development throughout the world’. As of 1 September 2007, 1675 sites globally had been designated Ramsar sites. Qualification for nomination is broadly based on two criteria: criterion A for sites containing representative, rare or unique wetland types, and criterion B for sites of international importance for conserving biodiversity. Zambia has eight Ramsar sites. The first – the Bangweulu Swamps – was designated in 1991. The Ramsar Convention, has a ‘wise use philosophy’ which states that it ‘has at its heart the conservation and sustainable use of wetlands and their resources, for the benefit of humankind’ (Ramsar, n.d.).

The other partners in the Lukanga wetlands include the WWF and BirdLife International. Neither of these organisations advocates exclusionary or ‘fortress’ styles of conservation management (Murphree, 2000; Hulme & Murphree, 2001). The WWF aims for ‘a planet where people and nature can thrive together, in a stable environment, now, and for generations to come’. It further points out that it does not intend to keep people out of nature (WWF, n.d.), and that it actively supports CBNRM (community-based natural resources management) schemes across southern Africa, including Zambia (Wainwright & Wehrmeyer, 1998; Child, 2004). BirdLife International focuses on ‘birds, and the sites and habitats on which they depend’ and is working ‘to improve the quality of life for birds, for other wildlife (biodiversity), and for people’ (BirdLife International, 2012). The Lukanga is home to the sitatunga, or marshbuck, and cranes and a variety of songbirds, and provides an important food source for waterbirds such as fulvous whistling ducks, teals, knob-billed ducks and white-backed ducks (Kamweneshe & Beilfuss, 2002:5). It is readily apparent that the various human activities in and around the swamp, including fishing, cattle herding, vegetation harvesting, and fires, could disturb the habitats used by birds and other wildlife (Kamweneshe & Beilfuss, 2002:11).

3. The study

This study formed part of the broader Global Environmental Fund project on the Sustainable Management of Inland Wetlands in Southern Africa which began in 2005 and ended in 2009. Complementary ecological assessments and GIS (Geographical Information Systems) mapping are ongoing (Rebelo et al., 2007). The research aimed to put in place or enhance mechanisms that minimise the degradation of wetland ecosystems. Lukanga was selected since it is a Ramsar site and, according to the ECZ (n.d.), one of the least studied wetlands in Zambia. In addition, Lukanga's riparian communities are among the poorest in the country, and are more or less wholly dependent on the wetland for their livelihoods. The study also sought to understand the underlying power processes at play in the Lukanga wetlands.

The research was largely based on qualitative research methods. Key informant interviews were conducted with ministries and government departments and non-governmental organisations. Traditional leaders and councillors at the case study sites were also interviewed for their insights into the wetland's management and its dynamics, narratives and contests for wetland resources. Focus group discussions were conducted at both research sites. Participants were drawn from both the Lenje and Bemba ethnic groups. Both men and women participated, and efforts were made to allow divergent views to be heard. A questionnaire survey was also conducted at 60 stratified and randomly selected households to triangulate the results of the participatory research methods. Figure 2 shows that grazing was the most important use mentioned by these 60 households.

Figure 2: Main uses of the Lukanga wetlands

4. Conceptual framework

This paper draws broadly on political ecology theory (Robbins, 2004; Neumann, 2005). Political ecology ‘combines the concerns of ecology and broadly defined political economy. Together this encompasses the constantly shifting dialectic between society and land-based resources and also within classes and groups within society itself’ (Blaikie & Brookfield, 1987:3). Central to political ecology is power and how it is used and articulated, and how it manifests itself across an ecological landscape (Geheb & Mapedza, 2008). All power is ‘relational’ in the sense that one cannot be powerful if one does not have others over which to assert one's power. Political ecology emphasises the importance of recognising asymmetries of power – the unequal relations between different actors – when attempting to explain the interaction of society and environment (Bryant & Bailey, 1997). One way to gain power over others is to control access to a resource (whether natural or otherwise) that they need.

More specifically, this study makes use of Trottier's framework (2008) that illustrates the structural properties of social systems (see Figure 3). The general assumption by scientists and politicians is that environmental rules are produced on the basis of scientific evidence, independent of political influence. Critical political ecologists question such assumptions (Fairhead & Leach, 1996; Forsyth, 2003; Latour, 2004; Peet & Watts, 2004), and argue that the production of scientific environmental ‘fact’ is embedded in power relations (Bassett & Bi Zueli, 2003; Trottier, 2008). If we accept this argument, then we must see science as value laden and tending to reflect power asymmetries within society.

Figure 3: Structural properties of social systems

Jabri (1996) argues that the structural properties of social systems are maintained by society's rules, and that these rules are of two kinds: normative sanctions, which define what can be done, and meaning-producing rules, which are an attempt to understand. Normative sanctions translate directly into social power asymmetries and perpetuate the structure of domination within society. Meaning is produced through interpretative schemes, specific depictions of reality which, when hegemonic, construct a structure of signification, typically captured in dominant ‘narratives’ which are attempts to explain the ‘truth’. The ‘narratives’ support the structure of domination.

Concepts will, therefore, emerge from a variety of interpretations of data which, to a lesser or greater degree, reflect the political interests of those who collected the data, and which are subsequently used to support new political directions or assertions. Sometimes such discourses achieve a critical mass, beyond which they are understood to be dominant ‘narratives’, and are held up to be benign scientific ‘truth’. The following ideas are good examples of such ‘narratives’: the apparently clear relationship between livestock density and land degradation (see Behnke & Scoones, 1992; Sullivan, 1999; Rowntree et al., 2004), the threat of desertification (Swift, 1996; Tiffen & Mortimore, 2002; Davis, 2004), the challenge posed by pastoralism to wildlife conservation (Adams & McShane, 1996; Brockington & Homewood, 1996; Homewood & Brockington, 1999), and the link between human population density and land degradation (Tiffen et al., 1994). The Ramsar Declaration is a ‘narrative’ in this sense, in that it presupposes the essential ‘good’ of protecting wetland resources, and draws on selected ‘fact’ to justify this perspective and designate selected wetlands. It follows that this narrative opens up opportunities for certain groups of stakeholders to exploit the designation for their own ends. However, competing narratives can also be advanced to counter the proposed narratives (Ferguson, 1994; Bassett & Bi Zueli, 2003; Trottier, 2008).

This paper explains how the Ramsar designation opened up opportunities for dominant Zambian political interests to exploit the Lukunga wetlands at the expense of the Kapukupuku and Waya communities. Lukanga's communities did not passively accept such moves by the state but also sought to exploit opportunities that opened up with the Ramsar designation, and to counter the dominant ‘narratives’ that accompanied this designation.

5. Findings and discussion

5.1 The political landscape of Lukanga

Although traditional leaders have no legal powers, they remain very influential at the local level, particularly with respect to land allocation. The land allocated by chiefs gives villagers usufruct rights (i.e. the right to clear unoccupied land for cultivation, according to their needs and the availability of land). Use rights are traditionally granted free of charge, although a token gift, such as drink, may be expected by the chief. Despite such traditional land allocation procedures, some fishermen were said to have illegally settled on land without consulting the traditional leaders, thereby increasing tensions between immigrants and the local communities and their chiefs. Traditional leaders were said to have granted land to immigrants for a fee. In instances where fees are requested, chiefs may ask the beneficiary to give them substantial sums of money, in contrast to the token of appreciation requested from residents, which is voluntary and is given publicly. The fee is usually kept a secret from the community. During fieldwork, local people provided the names of some of the ‘corrupt’ traditional leaders who were willing to assist immigrants for a fee – despite public statements to the contrary.

State interests focused on potential tourism investments in the Lukanga area with traditional leaders. Despite discussions failing to reach agreement, local people accused traditional leaders of ‘selling out’ their land to the Ramsar Convention. They saw the initiative as the theft of their land.

At the local level there are tensions between fishermen and farmers over access to and use of the wetland. The local Lenje people refer to the Bemba migrants as ‘enemies’, and argue that the fishermen are promiscuous social misfits who undermine social cohesion in Lukanga (Haller & Chabwela, 2009; Haller, 2010). One of the reasons was that the Bemba were the first to bring women into the fishing camps, which was traditionally taboo for the Lenje, with the exception of the likuwo fishing ceremony. In 1975 the Lenje chief Liteta burnt a fishing settlement in his village to punish migrant fishermen who had settled illegally, in an attempt to force them to leave his area. Although he argued that he was protecting his land and his people, he was arrested and charged with arson (interview, Chief Liteta, Kapukupuku, 22 January 2007). Such an incident demonstrates the degree of potential animosity between immigrants and the long-term residents in the study area. Most fishermen are suspicious of the state and state-related institutions such as the police or the fisheries department, since most of their dealings with these institutions have led to their being punished. During one field visit, the research team had to negotiate its way carefully past a fishing village which was very hostile to government and its related institutions who are largely seen as destroying their livelihoods. Initially, the researchers were assumed to be connected to the government. It was only after villagers' trust had been gained that they opened up to the research team.

5.2 The contested meaning of the Ramsar designation

The designation of the Lukanga wetlands as a Ramsar site inspired three broad ‘narratives’, each reinforcing its proponents' vested interests.

The first narrative is that of Ramsar, supported to some extent by the WWF, BirdLife International and other bird-related non-governmental organisations. This narrative is about conservation, but not necessarily the ‘fortress’ (i.e. exclusionary) style of conservation. Ramsar, through the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), and BirdLife International and its related IBA (Important Bird Areas) programme, is mainly derived from a western, conservation-based set of interests and concerns for conservation. The request for the Ramsar designation was made by government departments with little or no input from local communities. A BirdLife International affiliate, International Crane Foundation, in its 2002 report argues that human activities have contributed to biodiversity loss in the Lukanga wetlands and, further, that there is a need to consider the ‘potential of wildlife in terms of ecotourism, game ranching, and local safari hunting’ (Kamweneshe & Beilfuss, 2002). Safari hunting is largely tailored for foreign tourists.

The second narrative is state-based, at both national and local levels. At the national level, the Zambian Government sees its efforts to protect the Lukanga wetlands as part of its commitment to the International Convention on Biodiversity. By being part of Ramsar, Zambia sees opportunities for expanding the tourism sector and increasing the associated revenue. It sees tourism as positively contributing to the attainment of Zambia's Vision 2030, the guiding goal for Zambia's economic development trajectory up to the year 2030. Tourism's contribution to the GDP grew at an average of 5% between 1991 and 1998 and 18% between 1999 and 2001. Tourism also generated US$145 million in 2002, equivalent to 4% of the GDP in 2002 (Ministry of Finance, 2006). Hence, it is no surprise that the government sees potential in the tourism sector. One member of parliament in the Lukanga area in particular has promoted the construction of tourist lodges in the area, and spearheaded the production of a report on a study exploring various investment opportunities in and around the wetland. Tourist lodges are seen by the politicians as providing local employment and supporting local ancillary craft industries. This view is largely based on the wildlife-based CBNRM experiences in Zambia and the southern African region as a whole. In a draft report, Lukanga is described as a ‘money-making machine’ (GoZ, 2006).

These perspectives are echoed at the local level, where politicians see the Lukanga Ramsar designation as opening up new economic opportunities, such as brick-making and commercial fishing and agricultural development. Local MPs see the designation as an opportunity to develop the local tourism sector by constructing lodges and other tourism infrastructure. They also see it as a drawcard for mobilising investment and funding for development in the Lukanga area. They argue that this will ‘uplift’ local people from poverty by creating employment for them in the lodges and in other economic sectors they feel should be developed, providing them with alternatives to fishing and otherwise exploiting the wetland, and hence aiding conservation efforts. Tourists, they argue, will only be interested in visiting the Lukanga wetlands if it remained unspoilt by agricultural and other human activities.

One group of senior local politicians argued for the ‘natural’ beauty of the wetland being additionally enhanced by a massive translocation of wildlife from other parts of the country. In turn, the role of the Zambian Wildlife Authority (ZAWA) would be strengthened, to protect the wildlife and to prevent any further exploitation of the wetland (for the Kafue Flats case, see Haller & Chabwela, 2009; Haller, 2010). Local and national discussions surrounding the wetland therefore crept towards the ‘fortress’ style of management, excluding local people and preventing them from using the wetlands at all. The government has committed itself to designating 9% of Zambia's area as national parks, and 22% as ‘game management areas’. The latter designation has state-controlled access, and it is this status that the government seeks for Lukanga. State-controlled access limits access rights for the local communities while also defining resource use rules and regulations. Under the proposed model, with its emphasis on tourism development, local people will get employment, but will not get to control the tourist facilities. Most of the lodges will be run by business people.

The third narrative is that of the local communities, who see the proposed developments as undermining their interests. The proposed protection measures are locally perceived as closing access to both the Lenje and Bemba, who, besides using the wetlands, also believe the wetland to be inhabited by spirits of their ancestors. Their current use of the wetland contributes more to their livelihoods than the proposed tourist lodges ever will. The employment opportunities spoken about under the other narratives will only benefit a few unskilled workers, they argue, and will certainly not provide them all with work. It is dominant political interests that will be advanced, they argue, at the expense of their livelihoods.

5.3 Implications of the externally driven tourist investment model

For both the Bemba and Lenje, the tourism model of development would seriously undermine their access to the wetland area for cultivation, grazing, fishing and harvesting natural resources. This model also raises further questions about the political economy of resource use and the role of markets and incentives in natural resource management in general (cf. the CAMPFIRE 2009 programme in Zimbabwe, wildlife management in Zambia, and resource sharing arrangements in both the Zambian and Zimbabwean forestry sectors, and see Murphree, 2000). Most incentives of this kind advocate the use of financial rewards for managing natural resources – assuming that a price tag can be placed on the livelihood benefits of resources such as wetlands. Markets operate within political, social and economic settings, which may undermine the benefits accruing to poor wetland users. Power dynamics which determine access to wetland resources tend largely to work against the livelihood interests of the poor.

The group proposing to develop tourist lodges in the Lukanga wetlands was largely composed of senior politicians and business people who are perceived by both the Lenje and Bemba as advancing their own personal interests – not the interests of fishermen or wetland cultivators. In a participatory rural appraisal exercise conducted in the study areas, both the Lenje and Bemba, who seemed momentarily united against a commonly perceived threat, were of the view that if ever there was to be a lodge venture, this had to be spearheaded and wholly owned by their local communities.

The Kapiri Mposhi District development master plan3 outlines potential sites for different types of economic development within the district. The development of a master plan is a legal requirement for all districts and the designation of the Lukanga wetlands as a Ramsar site was seen as an investment opportunity (interview, District Commissioner, Kapiri Mposhi District Council Offices, 25 January 2007). The draft report for the plan points out that the swamps ‘are also good grounds for sugar cane, rice and wheat production’. The document further proposes ice block manufacturing as a potential mechanism for encouraging more organised large-scale fishing ventures in the Lukanga. Crop cultivators did not like these suggestions, nor did the fishermen, who felt that the bigger fishing companies envisaged by the District Council vision would undermine the small-scale fisheries. For the District Council, a few big fishing companies would be easier to tax than multitudes of individual fishermen.

5.4 Livelihood benefits

For both Kapukupuku and Waya, crop cultivation in the fertile alluvial soils produced by flooding is important for food security, even in drought years. The politicians, however, were also proposing large-scale brick making in the Lukanga area in order to supply the Lusaka, Livingstone and Kabwe urban areas with bricks. The environmental livelihood impacts of these proposed ventures have not been assessed. Seyam et al. (2001) estimated the value of the Lukanga wetlands to be over US$11 million per year. However, like most economic valuations, this does not necessarily translate into wealth for the people living there. Seyam et al.'s valuation aggregated a number of factors whose benefits do not necessarily accrue at the local level only: recession agriculture, fish production, biodiversity and wildlife, grazing, ecotourism, natural products and medicines. They point out that ‘the challenge for the scientific community is to devise methods for proper valuation of the multiple services and outputs performed by wetlands’ (2001:9). For instance, water lost through evaporation is not adequately accounted for in the valuation. Cultural values are also poorly incorporated in most economic valuations.

In the run-up to the 28 September 2006 presidential elections, most of the immigrants were attracted to the candidacy of Michael Sata of the NDF PF (National Democratic Focus Patriotic Front), since it was claimed that if elected he would allow them to settle in the Lukanga area. Most of the immigrants are from the northern part of Zambia, so it was felt that a candidate from their area would be more sympathetic to their cause. In the event, the winning presidential candidate was the late Levy Mwanawasa from the Lukanga area. He, it was thought, would evict communities from the wetland.4

Finally, it should be noted that this study was context specific and cannot be generalised to areas with lower population densities and few immigration and commercialisation pressures from urban settings. In such contexts, where competition for resource use is not very high, ‘fortress’ style conservation will not necessarily be applicable.

6. Conclusion

This paper, using the example of the Lukanga wetlands in Zambia, argues that apparently benign environmental interventions such as the Ramsar designation should be understood in terms of variable power asymmetries, which serve to generate, sustain and develop ‘narratives’ that can and do yield particular, power-based, outcomes and threaten livelihoods and local communities' practices in the wetland.

Arguments that conservation of the wetlands can help alleviate poverty for poor households have usually focused on wealth-based differentiation and who benefits. Such arguments typically do not consider other vested economic interests that can undermine livelihood claims. In addition, we should also note that knowledge or facts used in the evaluation of different sustainable wetland management options are value-laden and strongly influenced by the power asymmetries in society – and not necessarily ‘rational science’. In Lukanga, proposed developments in the name of poverty alleviation are more likely to result in the exclusion of poor local communities from the wetlands. Any poverty alleviation strategy must take into account unequal power interests and ensure that developments made in the name of the poor really do benefit the poor. Proposals in the Lukanga seem to be based on advancing the interest of capital intensive investments at the expense of community-based initiatives. The tragedy of such capital intensive investments is that they do not provide revenue streams to the local communities on whose behalf such investments are purported to be made.

Notes

¹Details from ‘Kapiri Mposhi District Profile’, undated draft report obtained by the author from the offices of the Kapiri Mposhi District Council.

²The Zambian Government has been offering free agricultural inputs to small-scale farmers through the Fertiliser Support Programme (Ministry of Finance, 2006). The main target for this programme has been the poor and the low income earners.

³‘Kapiri Mposhi District Candidate Sites with Economic Development Potential’, undated draft report obtained by the author from the offices of the Kapiri Mposhi District Council.

⁴This seems to have been a ploy by local political party activists to enlist support for their candidate. Levy Mwanawasa went on to win the elections and no one was evicted from Lukanga.