Maravi

In praise of resource nationalism

In praise of resource nationalism
By Dr Guy Scott
Wed 25 Aug. 2010, 04:00 CAT

We are standing on the lip of a great escarpment, gazing down a wide valley to the vast, seemingly unpopulated expanse beyond. The numerous hills and ridges are colour coded: yellow, black and dusty green mean “near”; memory blue means “far”; but how far is “far” I cannot begin to guess. In the near distance pools of sunlight scud across the ground, like spotlights being operated by someone wishing to draw our attention to the finer, not-to-be-missed details of what is laid out before our marvelling eyes.

Suddenly the whole vista is blanked out; it is as if we had been watching a documentary on MultiChoice and the signal just disappeared. A cold, swirling mist has driven in; it is thick enough to render the tops of the pine trees beside us invisible. Mystified, we notice that it is raining in the pines, and only in the pines! Bits and pieces of memory, some possibly false, inform me that pine trees are able to “milk” mist; their needles have a chemistry that relaxes the surface tension in tiny mist droplets, forcing them to coalesce into larger drops that fall to the ground just where they are needed. Well I never.

I can only lament that an adequate account of the high plateau that lies behind us, currently shrouded in the mist, is beyond me. So here is an inadequate one.

The terrain is predominantly gently rolling short-grassland laced with bracken, and heavily scored with water channels. These channels come together and form some quite respectable rivers which must, inevitably, fall to the lower lands 1000 metres below. And from the right vantage points below you can indeed see tall waterfalls literally falling over the plateau edge and tumbling down near-vertical cliffs. Returning to the grassland up on the plateau, this is dotted with thousands of small msitu, almost all smaller than the average Kabulonga garden, alleged to be the remnants of the ancient rainforest that once thickly covered the northern portion of Central Africa. I am not sure I buy that.

Lest you be tempted, by the landscape and the weather, to imagine you are in Scotland, take note of some of the fauna. Roan antelope, staring through their black masks, are in constant abundance, hanging out in breeding herds or as solitary bulls past their mate-by date. Reedbuck and eland, both species seeming curiously skittish, also appear to be endemic. Though we saw none, leopard are reported to be present at one of the highest densities in Africa.

At various times of the year beasts from the miombo (brachystegia) woodland below pass through: herds of zebra are common and elephant are sometimes seen.

At certain times of the year the plateau blooms with hundreds of species of flower - including many orchids unique to the area - and shows off whole flocks of butterfly. Some of the birds, too, are unique or virtually unique to the area. There is even a mammal, a species of elephant shrew, that exists only here.

My guess is that about half the readers of this column - and you are an educated lot - had heard of the Nyika Plateau before reaching this point. And about half again were aware that it juts into Zambia, thanks to the peculiar logic of defining colonial boundaries by the watershed between two water catchments (in this case the Luangwa and the Lake Malawi-Shire River catchments). And hardly anyone, I bet, knows that the first initiatives to establish tourism on the plateau were made by the Northern Rhodesian government in 1953. Well now you know.

It has taken me a while to get to the Nyika; circumstances having sidetracked me from earlier efforts. In the 1960s and 1970s I was prevented from visiting by the twin facts that my then wife was Yugoslav and that President Hastings Banda would brook no communists passing through his country - which you have to do to reach the Zambian side of Nyika. In vain I protested that though Tito might be a communist my wife was anything but. I got together with Simon Zukas - a fellow “communist” suffering under the same ban - and we hatched a plot to drive to the foot of the escarpment in Isoka district and climb up to the Zambia rest house. I do not remember why we never put it into action.

Five years ago I planned to accompany my current wife's family to Nyika.

Unfortunately Levy Mwanawasa ordered that Michael Sata be arrested and incarcerated in Chimbokaila. I had to stay in Lusaka as an observer of the whims and vagaries of the Zambian system for the administration of justice.

But now I have made it. How do I feel? Well, I feel proud. And let me be clear: I do not mean proud as a citizen of the world; nor do I feel proud as a tourist collecting offbeat destinations; nor do I mean proud as someone who has done a little bit to advance the cause of nature conservation. I feel proud as a Zambian. I feel proud to be a citizen of a country which has a share, even if a minority share, of the responsibility to protect and manage such a wonderland. I believe in the governments of nation states and their obligations. I do not believe in fancy projects or institutions that purport to be better placed than a legitimate government in the management of resources.

Of course, what I am saying is controversial. The fashion, these days, is for internationalism in the management of resources. But does internationalism work? Think of Copenhagen before you answer. The United Nations may be a useful talking shop but it has no single soldier or citizen of its own. Its wars, whether in Korea, Iraq or Somalia are American wars, fought with UN approval as a fig leaf. Multinational companies may indulge the conceit that they soar above the mundane limits of the nation state, but in the final analysis it is national governments that save them from themselves, or clip their wings. Ask the finance houses; ask BP.

Did you know that the Rhodesian UDI economy - and thus Smith's illegal government - was powered by Zambian hydroelectric kilowatt hours? Did you know that ZESCO, the same ZESCO that is currently in the process of emptying our pockets, did not even charge Ian Smith and his pals for the power supplied?

Where was the Central African Power Corporation CAPCO, the supranational supervisor of the common power system? Being based in Salisbury it perhaps overlooked its responsibilities to the Zambian taxpayer. The IBRD division of the World Bank, which lent Zambia the money for its power infrastructure, should have been well able to do the sums and work out that Zambia was being screwed. It chose not to, perhaps because some of its professional staff were Rhodesians. In the end it was Zambian nationalists, patriots, who brought matters to a fair resolution.

I am not saying that governments always do the right thing. They very often do not, but they are the only bodies, ultimately, with the power to do good, even if they chronically abuse it doing nothing or doing evil. Nor am I confusing what I have called “resource nationalism” with the claims of “Big People” to land or mineral or other resources on the grounds that they are nationalists or patriots or “ethnically qualified”. The ongoing development by two Big Men of Lusaka's last remaining stretch of green belt - Lusaka East Forest Reserve, originally established to protect the headwaters of the Chalimbana River - is not resource nationalism; it is resource despoliation. And ultimately this government is responsible for it, and will hopefully be held to account one day.

Back to Nyika. The current southern African fashion for trans-frontier “peace parks” has of course reached there - it has been a trans-frontier park, in effect, for over half a century. The money that the peace park movement is bringing to it is obviously most welcome if well used. Commercial development consistent with preserving the environment, i.e. eco-tourism, is obviously also a good thing. However, tourism potential would seem to have its limits in such a remote place; for example no operator is prepared to restart the Zambian rest house in the face of competition from the Malawian side of the park, where German aid has been used to build a hotel which looks like it belongs in an Alpine ski resort. Yet another example of aid interfering with the workings of market economics!

But in the final analysis Nyika's survival in its present form depends upon the two national governments, each of which owns part of it. Current threats are not severe but might count as small warning clouds on the horizon. Current pressure for meat, land and wood can only increase. The Malawian uranium deposits currently being opened up for mining seem to be well north of Nyika, though there is talk of tapping hydropower for the mines from inside the park area. Hopefully, nothing will get out of hand.

But if it does, send for the resource nationalists.

Labels: GUY SCOTT, NEOCOLONIALISM, PF

posted by MrK @ 5:20 PM