Suburban
John Vekris Suburban Correspondent
As everybody knows, water is life.
This water that we all need so badly does not come out of nowhere. Neither does it simply come out of the sky — and then what? And, to state the obvious, City of Harare does not make our water for us. At best, they collect it, treat it and distribute it to our taps from time to time.
Last but not least, for us here in Zimbabwe, water doesn’t just come from dams either: what did people do before the first dams were constructed just over a century ago?
Our water comes from the dams, which get it mostly from the rivers, which get it from the ground, especially our seasonally inundated grassy wetlands/matoro/mapani/vleis, which capture it in large quantities, store it, filter it and then let it out, little by little, into streams that become the rivers that feed our dams. Some of the water finds its way into all kinds of other ground, beyond the vleis, and can be found in our boreholes.
In fact, our Sunshine City sits on the watershed, which makes all our wetlands headwaters of the Manyame River. Our water literally starts in our midst! We don’t have the luxury of a majestic river passing by, bringing water to Lake Chivero from far and distant and undisturbed lands!
But currently, Harare is also in the midst of a water supply crisis. Let me rewrite that: Harare is in the midst of a water supply crisis!!! Less and less water is available and what becomes available is so poor in quality, it needs a cocktail of expensive chemicals to make it potable.
One reason for this crisis is the periodic droughts of recent years. Another big reason is because we are losing more and more of our wetlands. Apparently because our vleis look like dull, empty, wasted spaces while there’s money to be made.
So, more and more of our precious, vital wetlands/vleis are sold off, built upon and destroyed. They stop functioning and the inflows of clean, safe water into the streams and rivers that take it to Lake Chivero dwindle down to a trickle. And then we wonder why the levels of water at Chivero are going down.
(Note that Lake Chivero has not spilled for three seasons and is less than 60 percent full, so it is pretty toxic right now!)
Cultivation is another problem. But, to some extent, cultivation does not cause the sort of irreversible damage that construction of permanent structures does.
Of course, droughts mean less water. But the rain water that fills the lake, when it comes, is not all captured by the lake and the rivers alone: most of it, by far, is captured by our vleis. And that includes excess water, after a heavy rainy season, which is subsequently released slowly, instead of rushing into Lake Chivero all at once, quickly spilling over the dam wall and disappearing into the Indian Ocean, via the Manyame and Zambezi rivers!
But these wetlands/matoro/mapani are fast disappearing. Because people who should know, either lack the imagination to see and appreciate why these wetlands are so vitally important, and should be protected at all costs, or they just don’t care.
Question: why is it that vleis/wetlands dotted all around the capital, remained recognised but ignored for so very long, and now they suddenly become “not vleis” anymore, but “good business”? And they disappear, before our very eyes, one by one?
It is tempting to sit back and assume that “all will be well, eventually” and/or that “someone else will sort out this crisis” of yet more misplaced priorities. Unfortunately, both are delusions.
We all need to worry. That we will have less and less water available for our growing city, which will make our lives more and more miserable and unsafe! And more expensive! We need to worry, we need to ask why and we need to stand up for our rights. We need to learn more, to network and participate. We need to give up some of our time to intervene and say “enough is enough”. Because no one else alone is going to do all that, just for us.
We all have a responsibility to protect our wetlands/vleis because they are vital for us and our children’s children.
Did you know?
Wetlands/matoro/mapani/vleis are not what they are, and do what they do for us, simply by virtue of their distinctly clayey soils. The vegetation and general biodiversity that are found in our undisturbed wetlands are part and parcel of the process that draws the water deep into the soil and helps to store it there.
Cultivation on wetlands/vleis removes the plants and other life forms that help the process of absorbing and storing water. Cultivation also causes siltation in downstream rivers and lakes, including Lake Chivero.
It is possible to restore wetlands that have not been irreparably damaged. Monavale Vlei restoration provides a model for that, here in Zimbabwe.
John Vekris is a resident of Avondale and member of the Ward 7 Residents Association
