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DAM-L Mozambique floods and dams on Carte Blanche/LS (fwd)
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Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2001 10:44:43 -0800
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From: Lori Pottinger <lori@irn.org>
Subject: Mozambique floods and dams on Carte Blanche/LS
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The following is the transcript of a recent TV documentary on the
floods in Mozambique and the role of dams.
>From http://www.mnet.co.za/carteblanche/cbl_story_library.asp
AN ACT OF GOD?
Date: 3/4/01
Producer: Odette Quesnel
Presenter: Derek Watts
"Dams: corruption. Dams: back pockets. Dams: profits
to the First World. Dams: damage to the Third World."
- Professor Bryan Davies.
Mozambique is in flood - again. For a third year running the rainy season
brings with it a tide of chaos. The floods have already washed away about
77 000 homes and destroyed over 27 000 hectares of crops. Zambezi's muddy
waters have also claimed the lives of about sixty people.
Again, tens of thousands of Mozambique's poorest people are running
from water. They leave behind
their homes, their crops and their livelihoods. The international
community has responded again by
pumping millions of dollars in relief aid into the country that
just can't seem to get on its feet.
Mozambique is rated as one of the poorest countries in the world.
It's been ravaged by war, and
doesn't have the mineral resources of countries like Angola and the
DRC. So every time nature deals
a blow, it hits hard - like the droughts in 1984.
Land, which is now under metres of water, was thirsting for rain.
The famine caused by drought and
fuelled by decades of civil war saw over 30 000 people starve to
death - and that in less than four
months.
A missionary witnessed the tragedy. Peter Pretorius had gone to
Pambarra in Northern Mozambique to
do what he could to help. He describes the situation he found
himself in: "I was totally stranded
there, staying in the camp with the people. We were burying more
than 30 people every day. There
were nearly 30 000 people there, and everybody was starving to death."
Since then, Jesus Alive Ministries has initiated several relief
projects in Mozambique. They've started
feeding schemes, built schools, orphanages and clinics. Their
missionaries are based full-time at
stations in Maputo, Beira, Pembarra and Vilunkulous.
So, when Cyclone Connie hit in February last year - flooding the
central and southern parts of
Mozambique - the missionaries were among the first to respond. The
Mozambican government asked
the group to co-ordinate flood-relief efforts.
They were the worst floods in forty years. Heavy rains from three
cyclones saw waters rise two
metres above the danger line - leaving a path of mud and misery in
their wake. About 700 people
died and tens of thousands were left homeless. For many, the water
came without warning, and
there was no time to evacuate.
This time things are quite different.
Authorities could see the floods coming. Since January, heavy rains
in Zambia and Zimbabwe have
filled the Kariba Dam to the point of overflowing. The water had to
go somewhere. So, engineers
opened the floodgates - sending thousands of tons of water into
Mozambique's Cahora Basa Dam.
The only way to relieve the pressure there is to let water pour
down into the flood plains of the
Zambezi River.
So, this flood - and with it the fate of over 400 000 people - is
being controlled not by the whims of
nature, but by the men who operate the sluice gates. This flood is
more predictable than last year
because it depends on water being released from upstream.
The equivalent of 350 swimming pools of water gushes out of the
Cahora Basa Dam gates every
single second. That translates into floods all along the Zambezi,
where wildlife and people are left to
cope with its devastating effects. Most will blame the havoc on
nature - saying the floods were an act
of God.
However, one man believes all this could have been avoided if
someone had listened to him over two
decades ago. Carte Blanche met with him while the rest of the team
were in Mozambique.
Bryan Davies is a Professor of Zoology and Director of the
Freshwater Research Unit at the University
of Cape Town. In the early '70s Bryan was part of an environmental
impact assessment team in
Mozambique. He had to analyse what would happen if dams along the
Zambezi weren't properly
managed. His report said that dams would cause problems by just
being there, because they'd
interfere with the natural flood cycle.
Bryan explains further: "The people of the lower Zambezi valley
used to practise flood-plain recession
agriculture: as the flood receded, leaving behind rich silt, they
would plant their crops and move into
the flood plain. As the flood returned, they would harvest their
crops, and they would move back off
the flood plains."
When dams were built along the Zambezi, the yearly cycle of
flooding stopped. So people settled
permanently in the dry flood plains. Bryan says that one of his
problems has always been with civil
engineers, who say that dams stop floods and save lives. If you
store all of the flood water, people
won't drown.
"People change their habits. They move closer onto areas where they
shouldn't be, and when the big
flood comes, and the reservoirs can't hold the water, they are in
grave danger," says Brian.
Hence the drama unfolding in Mozambique today. Fortunately, the
authorities are prepared and help
is pouring in from all over the world. Earlier this week, the South
African National Defence Force
arrived in Beira with food, medical supplies, vehicles, and almost
a hundred men. They are also
bringing three planes and four helicopters.
Several international aid organisations - including the Red Cross,
World Vision, Unicef and the World
Food Program - have already set up shop. Most of them are sending
manpower and supplies to Caia
- a village north of Beira. Still, resources are limited.
There have been a number setbacks - some of them expensive. We'd
hitched a ride to Caia with
members of World Vision and the Red Cross.
Every day the number of people left homeless and hungry increases.
So far, more than 60 000 people
have been moved to safety. Those with time on their side have been
able to pack up and walk.
Some come by boat. Others are airlifted - often with little more
than the clothes on their backs. In the
past two weeks, almost 14 000 flood victims have moved into refugee
camps in and around Caia
alone.
It's not just their homes and their meagre possessions that have
been left behind. For many people
here, it's also their livelihood. In the Caia region 80 percent of
the first season's crops have been
destroyed - and for them that's just about all the food for the year.
Hos? Tonn? is one of tens of thousands of subsistence farmers who,
thanks to the floods, won't be
able to feed his family for at least a year. He says that all his
crops have been covered with water
and that he has lost everything. Hos? is here with his wife and
five of their eleven children. They'll
probably go back to the river when they can.
He says that if the government gave them land somewhere else, he
would not be able to refuse. But
no one is offering that. Without their land along the river, these
people have nothing.
Pilots Slade Thomas and Murray Henry have been flying
search-and-rescue missions along the
Zambezi for the past two weeks. Here, evacuation isn't simply a
case of picking people up. Engineer
Murray Goosen has to first find them, and then explain that they
need to be airlifted to safety. "It can
be difficult to get the message across," he says.
When they do finally understand what the airlift is about, some go.
But many turn down the offer of
help.
Most of those who take the ride have never left their villages.
They will experience things they've
never known: a helicopter ride; the deafening sound of engines that
will take them to strangers in
refugee camps; the prospect of having to survive in a faraway place
with no money, no tools and no
way of growing their own crops.
Professor Davies insists that dams are at the root of the
suffering. He says a report by the World
Commission on Dams supports his argument: "Dams: corruption. Dams:
back pockets. Dams: profits
to the First World. Dams: damage to the Third World."
It is the developing-world countries that are still building the
dams, he says. But, it's the people who
live in the valleys who have to deal with the consequences.
Since the waters have taken their homes, many of these people will
head for the cities. But in a
country as poor Mozambique, urbanisation doesn't spell employment
and rural refugees simply join
the ranks of the urban destitute. Those who opt to go back to the
flood plains, where they can at
least grow their own food, risk losing everything the next time the
waters rise.
Professor Davies predicts that Mozambique will experience the same
crisis, year after year, "until the
engineers who operate those hydro schemes get together; until a
proper basin-wide management
plan is formulated; until everybody agrees to certain draw-down
flow procedures and an education
programme is launched in the valley to inform the folk down there
that floods are going to come".
Until that happens, the world can expect many more stories of
floods and human suffering to come
from Mozambique.
--
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
and Editor, World Rivers Review
International Rivers Network <'})))>><
1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94703, USA
Tel. (510) 848 1155 Fax (510) 848 1008
http://www.irn.org
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