1 Green Rocks and Green Trees The northern plateaux of Zambia, receive 1000 to 1500mm of rainfall and are are dominated by wet Miombo (B... 10:47

1
Green
Rocks
and
Green
Trees
The
northern
plateaux
of
Zambia,
receive
1000
to
1500mm
of
rainfall
and
are
are
dominated
by
wet
Miombo
(Brachystegia-­‐
Julbernardia
woodland.
The
nutrient
poor
soils
once
denuded
of
natural
vegetation
are
prone
to
leaching
and
rapid
acidification.
Around
the
17th
century,
the
Bemba
people,
immigrants
from
the
Congo,
brought
with
them
a
semi-­‐nomadic
farming
system
called
Chitemene.
Farming
and
Survival
Traditionally,
Chitemene
relies
on
coppicing
trees
in
a
circle
in
the
dry
season
to
a
height
of
3
to
4
metres
concentrating
the
branches
in
a
smaller
circle
and
burning
them
before
the
onset
of
the
rains
to
unlock
nutrients
stored
in
the
woody
biomass.
Finger
Millet
is
then
broadcast
in
the
nutrient
rich
ash.
During
the
following
2
or
3
seasons
Groundnuts
and
Beans
are
planted
on
ridges
interspersed
with
Cassava
and
the
circle
was
finally
abandoned
when
the
last
Cassava
tubers
are
harvested
and
the
soils
were
considered
exhausted.
Homesteads
can
be
kilometres
from
these
circles,
and
temporary
shelters
called
Mitanda
are
erected
beside
them
during
planting
and
harvesting.
In
this
manner
a
family
will
farm
2
or
3
circles
concurrently,
the
first
occupied
primarily
by
millet
and
the
last
by
cassava.
Classically,
circles
were
abandoned
for
20
to
30
years
allowing
the
trees
to
rejuvenate.
Experts
agree
that
the
forests
on
which
Chitemene
depend
Large
Circle
Chitemene
Undisturbed
Miombo
2
can
at
most,
support
about
2
to
4
persons
per
square
kilometre
and
in
the
1930’s
British
agronomists
undertook
numerous
experiments
to
determine
whether
millet
production
could
be
intensified.
They
failed
and
it
was
clear
that
the
Bemba
had
evolved
a
system
that
was
unbeatable
so
long
as
there
were
adequate
forests
to
sustain
the
cycle
of
exploitation
and
recovery.
In
its
original
forms
Chitemene
is
very
different
from
what
we
see
in
Zambia’s
Maize
belts.
In
the
north,
trees
were
lopped
to
temporarily
nutrify
the
soils
and
then
left
to
regenerate
whereas
in
the
south
trees
were
obliterated
to
make
way
for
the
plough
and
in
theory,
for
sedentary
agriculture.
Alongside
Chitemene
circles,
families
cultivated
semi-­‐permanent
gardens
called
Ibala.
Tended
mainly
by
women
these
gardens
were,
depending
on
opportunities
offered
by
pockets
of
more
fertile
soils
or
dambos,
intercropped
with
Maize,
early
maturing
Millet
varieties
that
provided
emergency
rations
before
the
main
harvest,
Cassava,
Sweet
Potatoes,
Groundnuts,
Sorghums,
Beans,
Pumpkins,
Gourds,
Castor
and
Rice.
In
terms
of
food
production
Ibala
was
equally
as
important
as
Chitemene
but
symbolically
much
less
so.
The
cutting
of
trees
was
a
preserve
of
men
alone
and
the
athleticism
displayed
in
reaching
the
topmost
branches
a
measure
of
masculinity.
Inevitably,
any
attempt
to
abbreviate
descriptions
of
these
farming
systems
and
the
origins
of
more
recent
variants
lead
to
gross
oversimplification.
Between
the
1900’s
and
1980’s
missionaries,
administrators,
scientists
and
anthropologists
studied
their
dynamics
in
enormous
detail
and
uncovered
so
many
versions
that
classification
seemed
almost
impossible.
‘Cutting
down
Trees’,
by
Moore
and
Vaughan;
‘The
Miombo
in
Transition’
edited
by
Campbell
and
many
other
important
works
particularly
those
of
Trapnell,
Richards
and
Chidumayo,
provide
fascinating
insights
for
those
interested
in
attempting
to
unravel
the
complexities
of
Bemba
society
and
their
relationship
with
trees
and
modernity.
Expatriate
Nostalgia
Europeans,
perhaps
because
they
obliterated
their
own
forests
for
the
purposes
of
farming,
and
the
construction
of
wooden
ships
to
defend
lucrative
trade
and
slave
routes,
suffer
a
form
of
nostalgic
anxiety
when
they
fly
over
vast
swathes
of
woodland
and
observe
increasing
numbers
of
unsightly
pock
marks.
In
Europe
landscapes
have
settled
into
patterns
that
if
unrecognisable
from
their
pristine
state,
are
reassuringly
static
and
farmers
Small
Circle
Chitemene
–
often
oblong
3
are
subsidised
to
conserve
the
idyllic
scenery
we
see
revealed
from
helicopters
as
they
pursue
the
competitors
of
the
Tour
de
France!
For
centuries
there
has
been
nothing
static
about
the
vast
Miombo
ecosystem
and
changes
in
the
intensity
and
variety
of
its
use
have
ebbed
and
flowed
in
concert
with
the
circumstances
of
its
inhabitants.
Long
before
the
arrival
of
the
first
Europeans,
the
majestic
trees
witnessed
migrations,
tribal
conflicts,
Arab
slave
raids,
protective
fortifications,
barter,
ivory
trading,
the
expulsion
of
the
weak
and
the
ravages
of
periodic
famines.
Where
these
upheavals
caused
the
defensive
concentration
of
populations,
large
tracts
of
Miombo
would
disappear
and
then
regenerate
as
populations
disbursed
or
were
thinned
out
by
pestilence
or
drought.
Yet
if
the
trees
could
speak,
we
would
hear
that
their
very
survival
was
first
brought
into
question
with
the
influx
of
the
Europeans
and
alongside
them
taxation,
copper
mining,
the
introduction
of
a
wage
economy,
the
penetration
of
roads
and
railways,
and
the
growth
of
populations
and
towns.
The
‘raid
and
trade
economies’
that
eventually
asserted
Bemba
hegemony
over
large
tracts
of
the
northern
Miombo
by
the
mid-­‐19th
century
with
the
support
of
the
infamous
Zanzibari
slave
trader
Hamed
bin
Mohammed
el
Marjebi
or
Tipu-­‐tip
(sound
of
guns),
left
few
physical
imprints
compared
to
those
which
accumulated
after
a
technical
breakthrough
in
the
1920’s
and
allowed
the
deep
level
exploitation
of
huge
copper
deposits
situated
some
400
kilometres
to
the
south
west
of
the
Bemba
heartland
in
what
is
now
called
the
Copperbelt
and
across
the
Congo
border
in
Elizabethville,
now
Lubumbashi.
The
Scots
of
the
North
Perhaps
because
they
were
not
fixed
to
the
ground
in
a
conventional
sense,
the
Bemba
were
the
most
adventurous
and
flexible
of
all
Zambia’s
tribes
in
their
responses
to
the
upheavals
of
colonisation.
At
the
turn
of
the
19th
century
thousands
lugged
paraphernalia
for
Cecil
Rhodes’
British
South
Africa
Company
in
the
search
for
gold
and
diamonds
fabled
to
exist
in
abundance
under
the
Miombo.
They
carried
for
the
Commission
that
established
the
boundary
between
the
Congo
and
Northern
Rhodesia
and
for
early
European
traders
and
adventurers.
Later,
thousands
more
cracked
rocks
in
the
mine
shafts
of
the
Copperbelt
and
Elizabethville
and
as
far
away
as
the
gold
and
diamond
fields
of
South
Africa.
They
worked
on
Sisal
estates
of
southern
Tanzania,
laboured
locally
on
public
works
and
became
messengers,
clerks
and
junior
officials
for
the
colonial
administration.
The
mines
sucked
in
many
other
ethnic
groups
but
the
Bemba
were
always
in
the
majority.
Similar
to
the
experience
of
southern
Maize
farmers,
the
repercussions
of
globalisation
percolated
down
to
the
most
distant
communities
and
by
1929,
30,000
miners
already
worked
on
the
Copperbelt.
When
the
Great
Depression
struck
in
1930,
employment
shrunk
to
7,000
and
by
1936
had
swelled
to
over
70,000
with
the
recovery
of
western
economies.
Shortly
before
the
Second
World
War
half
the
male
population
of
Bemba
were
absent
from
their
homesteads
an
issue
that
concerned
the
colonial
administration,
yet
it
was
the
imposition
of
the
Hut
Tax
that
obliged
the
men
to
seek
wage
employment
-­‐
mostly
underground.
The
fortunes
of
the
mines
and
Zambians
have
always
been
inextricably
linked.
4
Return
to
the
Trees
From
an
agricultural
perspective
a
few
milestones
in
the
progression
towards
the
farming
systems
we
see
in
the
Miombo
today
are
worth
recording.
Concerned
with
the
effects
of
widespread
male
absenteeism
on
food
security
and
social
stability,
the
production
of
Cassava
was
enforced
by
the
British
from
the
1930’s.
The
crop
spread
rapidly
into
Chitemene
and
Ibala
systems
and
became
substantial
‘stand-­‐alone’
enterprises
in
some
Chiefdom’s
by
the
1940’s.
Before
and
after
Zambia’s
independence,
numerous
State
financed
agricultural
schemes
to
entice
the
Bemba
into
settlements
akin
to
what
were
considered
necessary
for
increased
productivity,
progress
and
utility
were
attempted,
all
of
these
failed.
When
the
price
of
copper
declined
in
the
70’s
and
the
nationalised
mining
industry
sunk
into
a
recession
from
which
it
has
recently
recovered,
‘back
to
the
land’
projects
for
retrenched
and
retired
miners
became
popular.
Inflation
soon
eroded
the
value
of
pensions
and
the
beneficiaries
discovered
that
the
status
conferred
by
the
ownership
of
land
compared
with
producing
enough
to
live
off
it,
were
entirely
different
matters.
Remittances
from
mine
employees
to
relatives
were
an
important
aspect
of
rural
life
and
economic
decline
caused
severe
hardship
throughout
Zambia.
By
the
early
1980’s
Zambia’s
debt
financed
Maize
drive
reached
its
zenith.
Enticed
by
fixed
prices
fertiliser
subsidies
and
seasonal
loans
that
were
seldom
repaid,
able
bodied
men
in
areas
close
to
government
depots
concentrated
on
growing
Maize
in
semi-­‐permanent
fields.
In
these
areas
production
increased
eightfold
and
for
a
period
Chitemene
declined
somewhat.
In
1991
when
democracy
swept
aside
the
one
party
state,
the
official
price
of
Maize
meal
was
less
than
30%
of
its
economic
cost
and
Maize
subsidies
consumed
13%
of
Government’s
entire
budget.
State
institutions
that
had
propped
up
the
Maize
drive
collapsed
or
were
privatised
on
the
insistence
of
the
IMF,
the
supply
of
fertiliser
declined
and
many
Bemba
returned
to
Chitemene.
While
government
was
subsidising
Maize
to
keep
urban
consumers
happy,
donors
were
spending
millions
of
dollars
on
projects
aimed
at
introducing
more
productive
and
sustainable
alternatives
to
Chitemene.
Like
the
British
before
them
they
sought
farming
systems
that
would
enable
the
Bemba
to
settle
and
obviate
their
need
to
migrate
through
the
Miombo
in
search
of
trees
containing
the
nutrients
required
to
grow
healthy
crops
of
Millet.
5
Separating
the
Bemba
from
Chitemene
requires
dramatically
superior
alternatives
and
in
the
event
none
could
be
found.
The
ash
from
140
tons
of
wood,
the
amount
burned
per
hectare
of
classic
Chitemene,
provides
about
44kg
Nitrogen,
340kg
Phosphate,
430kg
Potash
and
300kg
of
Calcium,
equivalent
to
700kgs
of
complete
fertiliser.
Furthermore
the
heat
from
burning
regulates
the
nutrient
relationship
in
favour
of
Millet
and
produces
grain
that
is
judged
superior
for
brewing!
The
Bemba
gleaned
whatever
benefits
they
could
from
the
donors,
including
some
improved
Millet
varieties
and
continued
with
their
Chitemene-­‐Ibala
systems
which
for
over
a
century
had
withstood
the
incursion
of
foreign
ideas.
Today,
Zambia’s
debt
has
been
cancelled
and
billions
of
dollars
are
being
invested
in
the
mines
to
satisfy
China’s
insatiable
demand
for
copper.
Regional
trade
barriers
have
been
loosened
and
charcoal
production,
formerly
less
significant
in
terms
of
deforestation,
is
on
the
increase.
Truckloads
move
south
to
serve
Zambia’s
expanding
cities
and
north
to
Tanzania
where
1.4
million
tons
are
consumed
each
year
equating
to
the
felling
about
300,000
hectares
of
woodland
annually,
mostly
Miombo.
Much
of
the
woodland
we
see
captured
by
aerial
photography
today
has
been
reused
many
times
but
now
much
of
it
has
had
insufficient
time
to
fully
recover
and
produce
adequate
amounts
of
ash
so
clear
felling
is
replacing
the
tradition
coppicing.
The
scars
are
on
the
increase
and
many
carved
out
of
the
Miombo
have
taken
on
geometric
shapes,
squares,
rectangles
that
would
have
puzzled
many
an
ancient
chief.
The
towns
and
cities
of
the
north
are
surrounded
by
expanding
halos
of
deforestation
where
families
have
settled
permanently
and
rooted
out
the
Miombo.
The
same
destructive
methods
used
in
Zambia’s
Maize
belts
are
applied
to
grow
crops
on
land
that
is
far
more
fragile.
In
these
densely
populated
areas
sedentary
agriculture
is
untenable
without
the
replenishment
of
nutrients,
the
6
application
of
lime
to
rectify
acidity
and
the
careful
protection
of
soil.
The
march
of
progress
and
population
is
gradually
paring
the
Miombo
away,
faster
now
than
previously
and
there
is
little
doubt
that
most
of
it,
even
in
designated
reserves,
will
eventually
disappear.
Agro-­‐forestry
practices
that
would
enable
the
production
of
Millet
together
with
accelerated
replenishment
of
soils
in
abandoned
Chitemene
sites
are
one
of
the
most
interesting
challenges
around.
According
to
some,
Zambia
has
the
4th
highest
deforestation
per
capita
in
the
world
yet
before
1900,
90%
of
UK’s
forests
were
already
gone.
Much
of
it
was
lost
building
those
wooden
ships
that
originally
brought
those
people
who
trickled
across
Africa,
who
eventually
found
those
green
rocks,
built
those
railroads,
opened
mines,
introduced
the
plough,
the
medicines…
and
thus
indirectly…
catalyzed
the
great
chopping
and
hacking!
Now
we
agonize
about
the
loss
of
trees
but
perhaps
we
should
invest
more
in
exploring
a
practical
solution
that
would
enable
the
Scots
of
the
North
to
balance
their
intricate
social
needs
with
the
pressures
of
modernity.
But
this
is
a
forlorn
hope
and
in
the
long
run,
the
Miombo
is
unlikely
to
survive.
And
yet
the
future
is
always
unpredictable.
The
recent
discovery
of
gas
deposits
mostly
off
Tanzania’s
southern
coast
estimated
at
43
trillion
cubic
feet
(TCF)
which
are
part
of
proven
reserves
of
441
(TCF)
stretching
from
Kenya
south
to
Mozambique
could
change
everything.
Gas
extracted
from
vegetation
buried
100
million
years
ago
during
the
Cretaceous
period
might
just
save
the
Miombo?
Workshops,
endless
studies
and
nostalgia
certainly
won’t!
Peter
Aagaard
CFU
December
20121
Green
Rocks
and
Green
Trees
The
northern
plateaux
of
Zambia,
receive
1000
to
1500mm
of
rainfall
and
are
are
dominated
by
wet
Miombo
(Brachystegia-­‐
Julbernardia
woodland.
The
nutrient
poor
soils
once
denuded
of
natural
vegetation
are
prone
to
leaching
and
rapid
acidification.
Around
the
17th
century,
the
Bemba
people,
immigrants
from
the
Congo,
brought
with
them
a
semi-­‐nomadic
farming
system
called
Chitemene.
Farming
and
Survival
Traditionally,
Chitemene
relies
on
coppicing
trees
in
a
circle
in
the
dry
season
to
a
height
of
3
to
4
metres
concentrating
the
branches
in
a
smaller
circle
and
burning
them
before
the
onset
of
the
rains
to
unlock
nutrients
stored
in
the
woody
biomass.
Finger
Millet
is
then
broadcast
in
the
nutrient
rich
ash.
During
the
following
2
or
3
seasons
Groundnuts
and
Beans
are
planted
on
ridges
interspersed
with
Cassava
and
the
circle
was
finally
abandoned
when
the
last
Cassava
tubers
are
harvested
and
the
soils
were
considered
exhausted.
Homesteads
can
be
kilometres
from
these
circles,
and
temporary
shelters
called
Mitanda
are
erected
beside
them
during
planting
and
harvesting.
In
this
manner
a
family
will
farm
2
or
3
circles
concurrently,
the
first
occupied
primarily
by
millet
and
the
last
by
cassava.
Classically,
circles
were
abandoned
for
20
to
30
years
allowing
the
trees
to
rejuvenate.
Experts
agree
that
the
forests
on
which
Chitemene
depend
Large
Circle
Chitemene
Undisturbed
Miombo
2
can
at
most,
support
about
2
to
4
persons
per
square
kilometre
and
in
the
1930’s
British
agronomists
undertook
numerous
experiments
to
determine
whether
millet
production
could
be
intensified.
They
failed
and
it
was
clear
that
the
Bemba
had
evolved
a
system
that
was
unbeatable
so
long
as
there
were
adequate
forests
to
sustain
the
cycle
of
exploitation
and
recovery.
In
its
original
forms
Chitemene
is
very
different
from
what
we
see
in
Zambia’s
Maize
belts.
In
the
north,
trees
were
lopped
to
temporarily
nutrify
the
soils
and
then
left
to
regenerate
whereas
in
the
south
trees
were
obliterated
to
make
way
for
the
plough
and
in
theory,
for
sedentary
agriculture.
Alongside
Chitemene
circles,
families
cultivated
semi-­‐permanent
gardens
called
Ibala.
Tended
mainly
by
women
these
gardens
were,
depending
on
opportunities
offered
by
pockets
of
more
fertile
soils
or
dambos,
intercropped
with
Maize,
early
maturing
Millet
varieties
that
provided
emergency
rations
before
the
main
harvest,
Cassava,
Sweet
Potatoes,
Groundnuts,
Sorghums,
Beans,
Pumpkins,
Gourds,
Castor
and
Rice.
In
terms
of
food
production
Ibala
was
equally
as
important
as
Chitemene
but
symbolically
much
less
so.
The
cutting
of
trees
was
a
preserve
of
men
alone
and
the
athleticism
displayed
in
reaching
the
topmost
branches
a
measure
of
masculinity.
Inevitably,
any
attempt
to
abbreviate
descriptions
of
these
farming
systems
and
the
origins
of
more
recent
variants
lead
to
gross
oversimplification.
Between
the
1900’s
and
1980’s
missionaries,
administrators,
scientists
and
anthropologists
studied
their
dynamics
in
enormous
detail
and
uncovered
so
many
versions
that
classification
seemed
almost
impossible.
‘Cutting
down
Trees’,
by
Moore
and
Vaughan;
‘The
Miombo
in
Transition’
edited
by
Campbell
and
many
other
important
works
particularly
those
of
Trapnell,
Richards
and
Chidumayo,
provide
fascinating
insights
for
those
interested
in
attempting
to
unravel
the
complexities
of
Bemba
society
and
their
relationship
with
trees
and
modernity.
Expatriate
Nostalgia
Europeans,
perhaps
because
they
obliterated
their
own
forests
for
the
purposes
of
farming,
and
the
construction
of
wooden
ships
to
defend
lucrative
trade
and
slave
routes,
suffer
a
form
of
nostalgic
anxiety
when
they
fly
over
vast
swathes
of
woodland
and
observe
increasing
numbers
of
unsightly
pock
marks.
In
Europe
landscapes
have
settled
into
patterns
that
if
unrecognisable
from
their
pristine
state,
are
reassuringly
static
and
farmers
Small
Circle
Chitemene
–
often
oblong
3
are
subsidised
to
conserve
the
idyllic
scenery
we
see
revealed
from
helicopters
as
they
pursue
the
competitors
of
the
Tour
de
France!
For
centuries
there
has
been
nothing
static
about
the
vast
Miombo
ecosystem
and
changes
in
the
intensity
and
variety
of
its
use
have
ebbed
and
flowed
in
concert
with
the
circumstances
of
its
inhabitants.
Long
before
the
arrival
of
the
first
Europeans,
the
majestic
trees
witnessed
migrations,
tribal
conflicts,
Arab
slave
raids,
protective
fortifications,
barter,
ivory
trading,
the
expulsion
of
the
weak
and
the
ravages
of
periodic
famines.
Where
these
upheavals
caused
the
defensive
concentration
of
populations,
large
tracts
of
Miombo
would
disappear
and
then
regenerate
as
populations
disbursed
or
were
thinned
out
by
pestilence
or
drought.
Yet
if
the
trees
could
speak,
we
would
hear
that
their
very
survival
was
first
brought
into
question
with
the
influx
of
the
Europeans
and
alongside
them
taxation,
copper
mining,
the
introduction
of
a
wage
economy,
the
penetration
of
roads
and
railways,
and
the
growth
of
populations
and
towns.
The
‘raid
and
trade
economies’
that
eventually
asserted
Bemba
hegemony
over
large
tracts
of
the
northern
Miombo
by
the
mid-­‐19th
century
with
the
support
of
the
infamous
Zanzibari
slave
trader
Hamed
bin
Mohammed
el
Marjebi
or
Tipu-­‐tip
(sound
of
guns),
left
few
physical
imprints
compared
to
those
which
accumulated
after
a
technical
breakthrough
in
the
1920’s
and
allowed
the
deep
level
exploitation
of
huge
copper
deposits
situated
some
400
kilometres
to
the
south
west
of
the
Bemba
heartland
in
what
is
now
called
the
Copperbelt
and
across
the
Congo
border
in
Elizabethville,
now
Lubumbashi.
The
Scots
of
the
North
Perhaps
because
they
were
not
fixed
to
the
ground
in
a
conventional
sense,
the
Bemba
were
the
most
adventurous
and
flexible
of
all
Zambia’s
tribes
in
their
responses
to
the
upheavals
of
colonisation.
At
the
turn
of
the
19th
century
thousands
lugged
paraphernalia
for
Cecil
Rhodes’
British
South
Africa
Company
in
the
search
for
gold
and
diamonds
fabled
to
exist
in
abundance
under
the
Miombo.
They
carried
for
the
Commission
that
established
the
boundary
between
the
Congo
and
Northern
Rhodesia
and
for
early
European
traders
and
adventurers.
Later,
thousands
more
cracked
rocks
in
the
mine
shafts
of
the
Copperbelt
and
Elizabethville
and
as
far
away
as
the
gold
and
diamond
fields
of
South
Africa.
They
worked
on
Sisal
estates
of
southern
Tanzania,
laboured
locally
on
public
works
and
became
messengers,
clerks
and
junior
officials
for
the
colonial
administration.
The
mines
sucked
in
many
other
ethnic
groups
but
the
Bemba
were
always
in
the
majority.
Similar
to
the
experience
of
southern
Maize
farmers,
the
repercussions
of
globalisation
percolated
down
to
the
most
distant
communities
and
by
1929,
30,000
miners
already
worked
on
the
Copperbelt.
When
the
Great
Depression
struck
in
1930,
employment
shrunk
to
7,000
and
by
1936
had
swelled
to
over
70,000
with
the
recovery
of
western
economies.
Shortly
before
the
Second
World
War
half
the
male
population
of
Bemba
were
absent
from
their
homesteads
an
issue
that
concerned
the
colonial
administration,
yet
it
was
the
imposition
of
the
Hut
Tax
that
obliged
the
men
to
seek
wage
employment
-­‐
mostly
underground.
The
fortunes
of
the
mines
and
Zambians
have
always
been
inextricably
linked.
4
Return
to
the
Trees
From
an
agricultural
perspective
a
few
milestones
in
the
progression
towards
the
farming
systems
we
see
in
the
Miombo
today
are
worth
recording.
Concerned
with
the
effects
of
widespread
male
absenteeism
on
food
security
and
social
stability,
the
production
of
Cassava
was
enforced
by
the
British
from
the
1930’s.
The
crop
spread
rapidly
into
Chitemene
and
Ibala
systems
and
became
substantial
‘stand-­‐alone’
enterprises
in
some
Chiefdom’s
by
the
1940’s.
Before
and
after
Zambia’s
independence,
numerous
State
financed
agricultural
schemes
to
entice
the
Bemba
into
settlements
akin
to
what
were
considered
necessary
for
increased
productivity,
progress
and
utility
were
attempted,
all
of
these
failed.
When
the
price
of
copper
declined
in
the
70’s
and
the
nationalised
mining
industry
sunk
into
a
recession
from
which
it
has
recently
recovered,
‘back
to
the
land’
projects
for
retrenched
and
retired
miners
became
popular.
Inflation
soon
eroded
the
value
of
pensions
and
the
beneficiaries
discovered
that
the
status
conferred
by
the
ownership
of
land
compared
with
producing
enough
to
live
off
it,
were
entirely
different
matters.
Remittances
from
mine
employees
to
relatives
were
an
important
aspect
of
rural
life
and
economic
decline
caused
severe
hardship
throughout
Zambia.
By
the
early
1980’s
Zambia’s
debt
financed
Maize
drive
reached
its
zenith.
Enticed
by
fixed
prices
fertiliser
subsidies
and
seasonal
loans
that
were
seldom
repaid,
able
bodied
men
in
areas
close
to
government
depots
concentrated
on
growing
Maize
in
semi-­‐permanent
fields.
In
these
areas
production
increased
eightfold
and
for
a
period
Chitemene
declined
somewhat.
In
1991
when
democracy
swept
aside
the
one
party
state,
the
official
price
of
Maize
meal
was
less
than
30%
of
its
economic
cost
and
Maize
subsidies
consumed
13%
of
Government’s
entire
budget.
State
institutions
that
had
propped
up
the
Maize
drive
collapsed
or
were
privatised
on
the
insistence
of
the
IMF,
the
supply
of
fertiliser
declined
and
many
Bemba
returned
to
Chitemene.
While
government
was
subsidising
Maize
to
keep
urban
consumers
happy,
donors
were
spending
millions
of
dollars
on
projects
aimed
at
introducing
more
productive
and
sustainable
alternatives
to
Chitemene.
Like
the
British
before
them
they
sought
farming
systems
that
would
enable
the
Bemba
to
settle
and
obviate
their
need
to
migrate
through
the
Miombo
in
search
of
trees
containing
the
nutrients
required
to
grow
healthy
crops
of
Millet.
5
Separating
the
Bemba
from
Chitemene
requires
dramatically
superior
alternatives
and
in
the
event
none
could
be
found.
The
ash
from
140
tons
of
wood,
the
amount
burned
per
hectare
of
classic
Chitemene,
provides
about
44kg
Nitrogen,
340kg
Phosphate,
430kg
Potash
and
300kg
of
Calcium,
equivalent
to
700kgs
of
complete
fertiliser.
Furthermore
the
heat
from
burning
regulates
the
nutrient
relationship
in
favour
of
Millet
and
produces
grain
that
is
judged
superior
for
brewing!
The
Bemba
gleaned
whatever
benefits
they
could
from
the
donors,
including
some
improved
Millet
varieties
and
continued
with
their
Chitemene-­‐Ibala
systems
which
for
over
a
century
had
withstood
the
incursion
of
foreign
ideas.
Today,
Zambia’s
debt
has
been
cancelled
and
billions
of
dollars
are
being
invested
in
the
mines
to
satisfy
China’s
insatiable
demand
for
copper.
Regional
trade
barriers
have
been
loosened
and
charcoal
production,
formerly
less
significant
in
terms
of
deforestation,
is
on
the
increase.
Truckloads
move
south
to
serve
Zambia’s
expanding
cities
and
north
to
Tanzania
where
1.4
million
tons
are
consumed
each
year
equating
to
the
felling
about
300,000
hectares
of
woodland
annually,
mostly
Miombo.
Much
of
the
woodland
we
see
captured
by
aerial
photography
today
has
been
reused
many
times
but
now
much
of
it
has
had
insufficient
time
to
fully
recover
and
produce
adequate
amounts
of
ash
so
clear
felling
is
replacing
the
tradition
coppicing.
The
scars
are
on
the
increase
and
many
carved
out
of
the
Miombo
have
taken
on
geometric
shapes,
squares,
rectangles
that
would
have
puzzled
many
an
ancient
chief.
The
towns
and
cities
of
the
north
are
surrounded
by
expanding
halos
of
deforestation
where
families
have
settled
permanently
and
rooted
out
the
Miombo.
The
same
destructive
methods
used
in
Zambia’s
Maize
belts
are
applied
to
grow
crops
on
land
that
is
far
more
fragile.
In
these
densely
populated
areas
sedentary
agriculture
is
untenable
without
the
replenishment
of
nutrients,
the
6
application
of
lime
to
rectify
acidity
and
the
careful
protection
of
soil.
The
march
of
progress
and
population
is
gradually
paring
the
Miombo
away,
faster
now
than
previously
and
there
is
little
doubt
that
most
of
it,
even
in
designated
reserves,
will
eventually
disappear.
Agro-­‐forestry
practices
that
would
enable
the
production
of
Millet
together
with
accelerated
replenishment
of
soils
in
abandoned
Chitemene
sites
are
one
of
the
most
interesting
challenges
around.
According
to
some,
Zambia
has
the
4th
highest
deforestation
per
capita
in
the
world
yet
before
1900,
90%
of
UK’s
forests
were
already
gone.
Much
of
it
was
lost
building
those
wooden
ships
that
originally
brought
those
people
who
trickled
across
Africa,
who
eventually
found
those
green
rocks,
built
those
railroads,
opened
mines,
introduced
the
plough,
the
medicines…
and
thus
indirectly…
catalyzed
the
great
chopping
and
hacking!
Now
we
agonize
about
the
loss
of
trees
but
perhaps
we
should
invest
more
in
exploring
a
practical
solution
that
would
enable
the
Scots
of
the
North
to
balance
their
intricate
social
needs
with
the
pressures
of
modernity.
But
this
is
a
forlorn
hope
and
in
the
long
run,
the
Miombo
is
unlikely
to
survive.
And
yet
the
future
is
always
unpredictable.
The
recent
discovery
of
gas
deposits
mostly
off
Tanzania’s
southern
coast
estimated
at
43
trillion
cubic
feet
(TCF)
which
are
part
of
proven
reserves
of
441
(TCF)
stretching
from
Kenya
south
to
Mozambique
could
change
everything.
Gas
extracted
from
vegetation
buried
100
million
years
ago
during
the
Cretaceous
period
might
just
save

the

Miombo?
Workshops,
endless
studies
and
nostalgia
certainly
won’t!
PeterAagaardCFUDecember2012