By Dorcas Kabuya
In an era where wildlife is facing unprecedented challenges from habitat loss and climate change, Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCAs) are an innovative way to conserve and manage natural resources.
Many Southern African Development Community (SADC) Member States share many TFCAs, which has made them go beyond their political and traditional boundaries to foster collaborations in order to preserve and restore the ecosystem while promoting sustainable development.
In an effort to raise awareness and foster sustainable development in the SADC region, a group of dedicated journalists recently underwent comprehensive training on reporting about Transboundary Natural Resources Management.
The initiative, spearheaded by the Centre for Coordination of Agricultural Research and Development for Southern Africa (CCARDESA) working with the SADC Secretariat with support from GIZ under the project called Climate Sensitive Natural Resource Management was aimed at shedding light on these vital cross-border ecosystems and the challenges they face.
SADC Transfrontier Conservation Area Technical Advisor, Nunes Mazivila, hinted that journalists had a responsibility to educate the public by bringing up pertinent issues surrounding protected areas adding that any disturbance to the ecosystem was a disturbance to the food system.
Mr. Mazivila said the TFCAs encompass multiple countries and require effective communication and reporting to inform the public, policymakers, and stakeholders about their significance and challenges.
“Journalists play a pivotal role in educating the public, influencing policymakers, and ultimately driving positive change within the region. If communities living around the protected areas are engaged and educated on the value of the resources in their vicinity, depletion of the resources whose benefit they enjoy could be a thing of the past,” he emphasized.
Mr. Mazivila concluded that having treaties and protocols that member states were signatories to was not sufficient. Therefore, joint management plans and reports from journalists were key in monitoring the progress being made.
CCARDESA ICKM Officer Mrs. Bridget Kakuwa-Kasongamulilo indicated that despite the efforts being made to preserve the protected areas, there was inadequate news coverage in this space by journalists who are the fourth estate due to a lack of necessary skills and knowledge to accurately report on transboundary natural resources management issues.
Ms. Kakuwa revealed that journalists play a key role in raising awareness. However, they sometimes lack some specialized training to develop a niche on TFCAs to be able to report for a change. “This initiative is not just about reporting; it is about safeguarding our shared heritage for generations to come,” she reiterated.
GIZ Technical Advisor from Botswana, Ms. Sepo Sitali, disclosed that there were 12 TFCAs in the SADC region, and the stories from journalists will also serve as a monitoring and evaluation tool to monitor how the management of transboundary natural resources in TFCAs is being done.
Ms. Sitali noted that her institution had a long-standing relationship with CCARDESA focussing on knowledge dissemination and that the goal is to ensure increased knowledge on sustainable utilization of natural resources and to support the communities living in TFCA.
The journalists trained were from Botswana, the Kingdom of Eswatini, the Kingdom of Lesotho, Namibia, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Journalists are a conduit for social change, it was necessary to provide them with a comprehensive understanding of what TFCAs are, their goals, and their importance in biodiversity conservation and regional development.
The author is an Agriculture Information Officer at the National Agricultural Information Services. She is also the CCARDESA Information, Communication, and Knowledge Management (ICKM) focal point person for Zambia.
