Conservation Lower Zambezi (CLZ)
is a local Organization that is undertaking an Environmental Education
Programme (EEP) within the Chiawa, Chongwe, Rufunsa and Luangwa areas (the
Zambezi Valley). CLZ was first incepted in 1994 where it has supported a
great deal of activities with ZAWA. By 2004, there was a felt need to
design a conservation education programme that would cover all the
catchment area through which the project is active.
This task has not been easy.
This is because, livelihood in Zambia is extremely difficult especially
economically. More than 70% of the population live below the Poverty Datum
Line. With less than 50% of the local population engaged in formal
employment, life for the greater majority is tough. With this scenario,
some have resorted to exploiting the most abundant and easiest natural
resources around; these being Fisheries, Forests and Wildlife.
Even if these resources are
adequately protected by law, their abundance and wide distribution has
made them extremely vulnerable. Low morale and not enough people to do the
job has made the law quite ineffective and worse still, the people view
these resources as “God given resources” that will and have never finished
from the time of creation!. This attitude has led to these resources
falling folly to the greed of man.
The strategy of the EEP is to
sensitize the local people to take responsibility in managing their local
resources. All the programme is designed to do is to stimulate enough
interest in the community to see the long-term benefits of conservation.
The EEP uses training workshops to assist teachers to formulate
conservation clubs and develop low-cost EE activities while at the same
time accord the local underprivileged children and the local community
the opportunity to see and learn about wildlife in its local environment.
Because conservation is not a one-man show, networking with stake-holders
is crucial component of the EEP.
The Teachers
These are role
models in society who spend a lot of their time developing our children
when they are in schools. The EEP discovered that part of the reasons why
teachers are not so keen to run conservation clubs is that they didn’t
know what to do. The CLZ-EEP will attempt to re-dress this situation
through training.
The Pupils
CLZ-EEP believes that as
educators, we must try to arouse a certain passion in our children at all
times through EE. EE should not only rotate around telling children what
should be done, it should also rotate on teaching children about what
needs to be done and training them on how to do
it. This is a better way of changing the attitude of our pupils towards
other natural resources and their management. CLZ-EEP intends to improve
the availability of reading materials and pupil-book ration.
The Community
The CLZ-EEP intends to empower local people
to take responsibility over their natural resources through programmes
that promote community participation. Training and sensitisation is a
critical part of this component.
THE
PROGRAMME
To date, 0ver 250 teachers,
pupils and community members have visited the centre. A total of 10 three
day training workshops have been conducted. 8 training workshops for
pupils and 2 for community members and teachers through out the catchment
area have been held.
The Mobile Unit, a Land-cruiser mounted with TV and video has done a
total of 12 round trips reaching a total of 6000 pupils in schools, 40
teachers and 840 community members throughout the catchment.
In order to make the programme sustainable, posters and magazines that
address local problems are under development. It is hoped that once
materials are made available coupled with training, attitude and
behavioural change will occur. One can never be complacent about these
numbers alone, that is why the mobile Unit checks on these target groups,
advising, strengthening and re-training them.
