[OPE] Survival and the environment in Mugabe's Zimbabwe...

From: Jurriaan Bendien (adsl675281@tiscali.nl)
Date: Thu Mar 06 2008 - 18:34:12 EST


"Without paraffin to cook and heat their homes, Zimbabwe's poor are resorting to building wood fires. This in turn is aggravating the denudation of the about 5 000 seized commercial farms as their new owners seek to make a quick profit by selling firewood." http://www.newzimbabwe.com/pages/fuel9.12934.html    "Preparing meals over an open fire is the only alternative for most people but this has far-reaching environmental degradation due to the rampant cutting down of trees." http://kenvironews.wordpress.com/2007/10/20/zimbabwe-the-politics-of-exclusion-and-national-survival/    According to analysts, among the most serious of Zimbabwe's environmental problems is erosion of its agricultural lands, wildlife poaching and deforestation. (...) Rampant poaching of wildlife due to poverty threatens to wipe out some endangered animal species. www.helium.com/tm/854997/global-warming-which-serious    "The wildlife is being poached beyond belief, trees that have taken a hundred years or more to grow are hacked from their roots and vast tracts of land have been set alight." http://africantears.netfirms.com/intro.htm

Evidently a "zero-growth economy" (or a negative growth economy) isn't very "environmentally friendly". That might have been true in prehistory, but not in a country of 12 million people where four-fifths of the workforce has no paid employment.

Zimdaily.com reported on 23/9/2005 that Mugabe's Presidential Office had banned screening the movie "The Interpreter". The interdict stated that the film is "mischievous" and a "subtle denigration of our head of State by the Bush administration and the CIA." Well, probably few people in Zimbabwe could afford to go see it anyway.

J.



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