By Staff Reporter

CHINHOYI – ALTHOUGH Mashonaland West Province is one of the worst affected by veld fires, it has shown shocking disregard for fire suppression measures with a 23.8 percent fireguard uptake.
The Environmental Management Agency (EMA) recently launched a one-week marathon assessment titled “Fire related joint operation” to assess community compliance in the wake of efforts and resources invested in educating the public to prevent fire outbreaks.
Munyaradzi Nhariswa, the Environmental Management Agency Provincial Education and Publicity Officer, told Telegraph that the results of the monitoring exercise were shocking and heart-breaking as Mashonaland West remains the most affected of all the country’s 10 provinces.
“There was no fireguard uptake by the farmers. After all the effort, the resources that we channelled in educating and engaging them, still the uptake was as low as 23.8 percent.”
Mashonaland West and the head office collaborated and nine teams were deployed to three districts including Zvimba, Makonde and Hurungwe to check fireguards, compliance and issuing penalties to those that had not done so, he said.
“We moved around and 337 inspections were conducted, 241 violation tickets issued, 173 environmental protection orders were instructed to ensure that they adhere to the law. Two dockets were also opened and the offenders will soon appear in court.”
Among other causes of low uptake was lack of capacity, especially for small-scale commercial farmers in Chitomborwizi and Zowa area.
“It’s the third generation from those who first owned the farms. And who are old. There is also family conflicts. Hence, there is need to separate small-scale commercial farmers from the large-scale farmers because the lack of capacity is visible,“ he said.
Other areas have issues of boundary disputes. They do not know where their land ends, so they just settle because if they start clearing disputes are prone to arise.
Another case is of illegal settlers.
“Little England A2 farmers and illegal settlers know that they don’t own the land and can be evicted anytime so to expect them to construct a fireguard is a no, no. Others did not comply saying they forgot.”
People are being urged not to start fires because of the little rains we have received. They should follow the Ministry of Environment guidelines that situate 31 July to 30 November as fire season.
“As people are starting to burn maize stalks, the danger is still there, People should start burning after 30 November,” he explained.