02 Jun 2022

Unprecedented wildfires raged across Botswana last year, burning vast swaths of forest, destroying precious ecosystems and pastures, threatening the beef industry and destabilising the tourism industry.

The devastation, which has been steadily growing over the years, saw 1 567 446 hectares of forest land – an area nearly 93 times the size of Gaborone - vanish in the last three years alone. This came to light during the 8th National Fire management conference held in Ghanzi recently.

Pleading with stakeholders to spare no effort in mitigating wildfires, local government and rural development minister Mr Sethabelo Modukanele, said when officiating at the event, that the fires did not only destroy the environment, but also accelerated global warming.

While controlled fires had some benefit, wildfires posed a special problem.

“We all know the benefits of fires for ecological balance, as a management tool, but our concern is adverse wildfires,” he said.

The assistant minister said Botswana was party to international agreements such as the Convention on Biological Diversity, UN Framework on Climate Change and UN Convention to Combat Desertification. Therefore, the country had an obligation to sustainably manage forests, which was not possible if the threat of wildfires was not eliminated.

Exemplifying the destruction caused by wildfires, Mr Modukanele said in Ghanzi District alone, the fires grew from 78.296 during the 2019/20 fire season to 213.449 during 2020/21 and to 256.185 hectares during the current season.

He said cross-border wildfires posed a distinctive threat as they needed the participation of other countries.  

Giving an example of last year’s wildfire between Botswana and Namibia near Grootlaagte, which damaged approximately 36 080 hectares of pastures, Mr Modukanele emphasised the importance of bilateral cooperation in fire mitigation.

“Inviting neighbouring countries will enable Botswana to engage and share ideas on how best to work out modalities of managing trans-boundary fires,” he said.

The assistant minister expressed appreciation for SADC’s active role in wildfire management activities.

The bloc had funded member states in fire training through collaboration with international stakeholders such as Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), he said.

He also praised Debswana Mining Company, which he said continued to provide training on basic fire managemen in partnership with the Department of Forestry and Range Resources.

The company had, besides donating fire equipment, ensured that areas within a 100 km radius of its operations was fire mitigated.

While uncontrolled wildfires had a devastating effect on the environment, controlled, they were beneficial, he said. To that end Botswana was eager to leverage knowledge from countries that had expertise in doing that.

“We are currently working with our friends from Australia to use savanah fire management to draw methodology to trade with carbon credits,” he said.

The methodology was being piloted in Chobe and Ngamiland areas to see if managing fires could bring returns to empower local communities. The pilot programme would ultimately be rolled out in areas prone to fires across the country, he said.

Australia’s savanna fire management is an emissions avoidance method, which credits activities that reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.  Annual planned burning is a required fire management activity under the method.

A carbon credit on the other hand, is a tradable certificate, a permit, that gives the holder the right to emit, over a certain period, carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases.
Issued, by the Kyoto Protocol, the carbon credit limits the emission to one tonne of carbon dioxide or the mass of another greenhouse gas with a carbon dioxide equivalent corresponding to one tonne of carbon dioxide.

High Commissioner to Australia, Ms  Dorcas Makgato said Botswana and Australia had at least two fire-fighting Memoranda of understanding (MoU), the first being the  savanna fire management alluded to by Mr Modukanele and another with New South Wales Rural Fire services.

She said the latter framework, which was coming to an end, but would be renewed soon, had seen over 5 000 people trained in wildfire management. The Australian government had also donated fire trucks and equipment under the same MoU. ENDS