DEFORSTATION IN SIAVONGA WORRIES TRADITIONAL LEADER

By ANNIE ZULU

Chief Simamba of the Tonga people of  Siavonga District has bemoaned the alarming levels of deforestation in the district. 

Speaking through his representative Phanwel Simamba,  the Traditional Leader observed that some of trees around the water bodies in the district have been cut for solid fuel consumption thereby affecting the rain patterns. 

He said Siavonga has not been receiving enough rainfall for some years and gets extremely hot. 

“The fishing industry in Siavonga has gone down drastically, it is not like in our days when we were growing up in the 1970s up to the 1990s when we had enough water and fishers who were mainly the white community made a lot of money because the catches were good.” 

“Now a lot of trees have been cut down which is now affecting the weather. Siavonga is hot most of the times and sometimes when you get on the lake, the water is as hot as if it's being boiled. There is a temperature for fish, so when it's too hot the fish go down deeper and most artisanal fishers don’t have nets that can go 10 meters down,” he said. 

Meanwhile, Siavonga District Council Chairperson Given Kwapu also noted the irritably high temperature in the district as a result of uncontrolled cutting down of trees. According to him, the temperature gets as high as 43 degrees Celsius. 

“When you are coming from Lusaka, just a few kilometres away there is rain, but Siavonga has no rain and is very hot, mainly because of cutting down of trees,” Mr Kwapu said. 

He however, stressed that the local authority is working with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in finding ways of preserving trees. 

WWF is an international non-governmental organization that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. 

“I’m happy with the coming in of WWF to partner with us in coming up with ways to mitigate climate change activities,” he said.