Salomo Ndeyamunye yaNdeshimona
Allow me to share my views on this platform. The anatomy of this piece is anchored on our replenished natural resources here in Namibia and elsewhere in the world. Our forests have been cut down, by us and by foreigners, to make the world we live in a better place.
We have cut forests so that we can create our artificial environment, of concrete. Animal habitats, birds, herbs and other plants have been destroyed. I pity what our future generations will find to cherish, let alone remind them of the world we lived in. A world where oxygen was truly free, and where birds sang, nature thrived and any ailment could be cured using natural herbs.
Natural habitats like trees, where birds nestled and multiplied, have been destroyed. Birds have flown away, and we caged them in zoos and parks.
They now have no liberty today due to humans’ inability to coexist with them. Our ancestors lived at peace and on them; the San of our land have for ages lived sustainably on the land. They have conserved it well enough, only for us to come and destroy it.
Many books, lectures and documentaries have been made to teach us about conservation. Many community conservancies have been created to try for animals to coexist wild with the people. Yet, hunger, gluttony and greed have driven us to kill, plunder and destroy what we have recreated.
Today, nothing is left. If any, it is very little to sustain us, let alone live to be found by the future in us. Many phrases like “cut down one, plant two” were coined, but our ears seem to be deafened by greed and hunger, maybe. We have seen how many plants, animals, fish and birds have been recreated artificially to replace what we have destroyed.
Wood from trees has been replaced by non-degradable plastic material to help us live, thereby hurting our little world more. The fundamental question is how many practices and formulas have we created to find a means by which we can reintroduce plants, birds and animals back into their natural habitats? I know of the Cheetah Conservation Fund for cheetahs in Namibia, and NARREC for birds of prey near Windhoek. I, however, wish we can do more. We breed guinea fowl and other birds, like ostrich quails and so on, as well as fish and many others for consumption.
What if we breed some and reintroduce them to the wild? I mean, water birds feed on fish, and we compete with them, yet we want them to fly over us and we rejoice. Why can’t we breed fish in ponds and seed them into natural ponds in our parks and communities so that we can let them live naturally? The sound of a guinea fowl is music to our ears.
We go all the way to Etosha just to hear them sing, so why can’t we introduce them and conserve them in our community forests so thatcthey can be near us?
Why can’t we plant forests and create habitats for birds and other prey?
Why can’t we plant herbs which have for ages healed us? Why can’t we deepen natural ponds so that they can hold more water or wild animals and us?
All this is possible, only if we can create deliberate efforts driven by community leaders, regional and national leaders altogether.
The government can motivate the practice by rewarding communities that practice this fully. I thus wish to pen off by calling out all environmentalists to accelerate this practice, and for the government to invest in this beautiful future.
We need not be a society that consumes but does not produce and conserve.