TANZANIA: Environment award for Mt Kilimanjaro activist

Photo: Kilimanjaro Environmental Conservation Management

Sebastian Chuwa shows a group of children from Malihai environmetal clubs how to plant tree seedlings during a World Environment Day Celebration

NAIROBI, 26 February 2002 (IRIN) - Sebastian Chuwa, an environmentalist who has long been active in implementing educational and tree-planting efforts for sustainable development around Mt Kilimanjaro, northern Tanzania, was one of five international prizewinners during the just-ended Winter Olympics in the US. In 1994, the International Olympic Committee adopted environment as the third principle of Olympism - along with sport and culture - and the Salt Lake Olympic Committee was keen to put across a strong environmental message while staging the 2002 Games. Through its "Spirit of the Land" project, it tried to raise awareness of green practices "and to honour individuals from around the world who have made substantial educational efforts on behalf of the environment". Chuwa has been active in organising communities on Mt Kilimanjaro to institute programmes to protect the ecology of the mountain, according to the African Blackwood Conservation Project (ABCP), which he co-founded. Mt Kilimanjaro has major socioeconomic significance, as it is a major source of water for about 5 percent of Tanzanians, as well as generating a total of 95 MW in hydropower, according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which last year launched a programme with the United Nations Foundation to promote the mountain's sustainable conservation. Furthermore, up to one million people used the rich volcanic soils and water of Kilimanjaro for agriculture, or earned their living through the growing tourist industry, UNDP stated, in promoting the Community Management of Protected Areas Conservation Project for the mountain. Encroachments around mountain resources - through farming, grazing, gathering of fodder and commercial logging - have resulted in increased levels of poverty for resident communities, according to Nehemiah Murusuri of UNDP Tanzania. Other major threats include land degradation, shrinkage of the water resources, and the melting of the ice cap through global climatic warming. [see http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=11175] Working through the local school system, Chuwa has established 47 Malihai Groups (or youth conservation clubs) which are teaching students the importance of sound ecological practices, and organising them in practical activities to help the environment, according to ABCP. Each school group establishes a tree nursery and raises seedlings, which they replant in deforested areas needing reclamation, or distribute within the community to help raise the standard of living for those who live on the mountain, the organisation stated. Each year, these clubs host a five-day campaign to raise environmental awareness on the mountain and to encourage replanting of local species. Malihai Clubs on Mt Kilimanjaro have replanted over 500,000 trees, many of them along the overused routes traversed by backpackers climbing the mountain, the organisation added. Chuwa is chairman of the Kilimanjaro Environmental Conservation Management Trust Fund, and spearheads educational and replanting programmes with the ABCP to protect the tree species used internationally in the manufacture of musical instruments and by the carving cooperatives of eastern Africa. "Because of over-harvesting, this wood is now becoming threatened, and several international groups are working towards instituting programmes for its sustainable use," according to ABCP. [For more details of Chuwa's work, see http://www.kilimanjarotrust.org and http://www.blackwoodconservation.org]