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FOREWORD

Natural resources in member states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) define our wealth as nations. They are critical to regional growth, economic integration, and collective economic independence in an increasingly globalising world.

Since most of the natural resources to which I refer are shared, achieving sustainable natural resource management requires regional cooperation, an integrated ecosystem approach and a common understanding of the natural resource base. The rationale for sustainable natural resource management is to achieve a balance between human demands on natural resources and the natural environment's ability to meet these demands.

The Zambezi River Basin, which links eight SADC members, including my own country - Mozambique - and is home to close to 40 million people, perhaps best represents the best of what we have in SADC in terms of our natural capital. Within the basin's large expanse, we have our water resources, land and soils, forests, and wildlife. All these resources define our economic activities which range from agriculture and forestry, manufacturing and mining to conservation and tourism, and scientific monitoring and research.

All of us in the basin states depend on the natural environment for energy supplies, water, food, shelter, tourism, rural development, and jobs, for example. As a region, we therefore need to maintain the Zambezi River Basin's healthy productive ecosystems to meet the challenges of not only intra-generational but also inter-generational equity.

As the most shared resource in the SADC region, the Basin provides a litmus test in terms of meeting one of the objectives of the SADC Treaty. Article 5 commits us all to, among other objectives, Aachieve sustainable utilisation of natural resources and effective protection of the environment.

This has to be balanced with another of the objectives articulated in the Treaty which is to, Aachieve development and economic growth, alleviate poverty, enhance the standard and quality of life of the peoples of southern Africa and support the socially disadvantaged through regional integration.

Achieving both these and other objectives of the Treaty is a balancing act, which we can only pull off with the full participation of stakeholders at different levels. We realise that various factors militate against us achieving this entirely within the region without global influence. However, I would like to emphasise that development in our context should not be at the expense of our people, impoverishing them further by overexploiting our natural resources for short-term benefits. This is why at the international level, SADC countries will continue to seek equitable trade regimes that do not run roughshod over our own approach to sustainable development. We believe that sustainable development will remain a chimera if the international trade playing field is not levelled.

As a transboundary resource, which is subject to management and use by various sectoral and national interests, the Basin may be overexploited for immediate and unsustainable gain rather than for long-term and sustainable development. Already there are many environmental concerns, which are associated with development planning that lacks an integrated ecosystems perspective. Land degradation, poor watershed management, sewage and industrial pollution, drainage of wetlands, water abstraction and general infrastructural development have reached a magnitude which calls for urgent action in terms of environmentally sound economic development and management.

Most of the current projects in the basin are focused on sectoral approaches targeted at strengthening development capacities and potentials while integrated approaches to sustainable natural resource management remain weak. This is primarily the result of a sectoral focus, and weak inter-sectoral and transboundary coordination mechanism and structures. These do not provide for sound management of transboundary resources; show a lack of knowledge and information on the dynamics and functions of ecosystems, are due to the absence of effective legislative frameworks as well as limited human resources sufficiently trained and qualified to study and demonstrate the hydrological and more general environmental impacts of manipulating and using dynamic and complex resources such as ecosystems of the Basin. The issues highlighted above are perpetuated by lack of information and effective mechanisms for reviewing, exchanging and sharing of information in the basin.

With water being the key resource to economic development and survival in this generally arid region, it is important that we don't overlook the importance of the Basin as we try to satisfy these growing demands on water. Ensuring the long-term balance between demands and the resource base's ability to meet these demands requires an integrated, coordinated and long-term management perspective. We have to accept that supplying more and more water is not the only solution. We have to learn to do with what we have. We simply have no choice. Managing demand for water and other resources is, therefore, critical to our long-term planning.

As stated in Agenda 21, integrated management of natural resources is the key to maintaining ecosystems and the essential services that they provide. The acquisition and provision of timely, effective information on the state of our natural resources is an important factor to the attainment of sustainable natural resource management.

We therefore, welcome the preparation of the State of the Environment
Zambezi Basin; an innovative exercise we hope will strengthen collaboration between our policymakers and the public in our collective efforts to effectively manage our heritage.

Our hope is that the production of the report on the Zambezi Basin is not an end in itself, but a long-term process, which should continue for many decades to come. The publication of the SOE report is based on the principle that information is the key to transformation, and that people need knowledge in order to act. Without this popular participation, environmental issues will be solely the domain of government institutions and international donor agencies. We are committed to ensuring that this does not happen.

The preparation of this report is in line with the 1996 SADC Policy and Strategy for Environment and Sustainable Development whose aims are to strengthen the analytical, decision-making, legal, institutional and technological capacities for achieving sustainable development in southern Africa; increase public information, education and participation on environment and development issues in southern Africa; and expand regional integration and global cooperation on environmental and natural resources management for sustainable development. The provision and dissemination of accurate information on the state of the basin's natural resources is a very important prerequisite to the maintenance of a healthy productive ecosystem. Sustainable use and equitable access to resources can significantly contribute towards poverty alleviation strategies in the region. Our consumption patterns and poverty will determine whether or not we will be sustainable. It is, therefore, important that we redouble our efforts at poverty alleviation and raise awareness among our people about the excesses of consumption.

We applaud the partnership of two of our sector coordination units - Environment and Land Management Sector (ELMS) and Water Sector Coordination Unit (WSCU) - and the World Conservation Union Regional Office for Southern Africa (IUCN-ROSA), the Zambezi River Authority (ZRA), and the Southern African Research and Documentation Centre-Musokotwane Environment Resource Centre for Southern Africa (SARDC-IMERCSA) for preparing such a timely report. This reflects the spirit of SADC, which encourages cooperation at different levels to foster regional integration. Multi-stakeholder cooperation can only strengthen our resolve to achieve sustainable development and raise the standard of living of the majority of our people.

J. A. Chissano
President of Mozambique
and Chairman of SADC

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