150
Proactive strategies called for to deal with ever-present droughts and floods is the
same eco-dynamic compact that is Mozambique’s ecological struggle.
10
Preparatory
methodologies for mitigating extremes of both weather and climate are largely
absent, or out of focus, in the country. Its political hierarchy harbors the same
misperceptions about the severity of climate change and what to do about it as most
other nations. Mozambique’s bottom-line poverty does not realistically make for
those core societal values (ecological rationality) that would be necessary to resolve
a populous completely out of touch with even mid-term survival (e.g., the next two
generations). Hence, a lack of the very grasp, let alone coordinated planning, of
biodiversity loss; notwithstanding the euphoria expressed by those who come to
parks like Gorongosa and can take legitimate pride in megafaunal numeric gains.
In those nations recovering from horrific internecine conflict, like Mozambique—
which veered toward communism after the exile of most of its remaining Portuguese
citizens, only to throw off that imposed socialist yoke in favor of a democratic process that has obtained for decades—other unanswered problems persist. Particularly,
the perceived notion of fairness in the distribution of wealth in human communities.
What is fair and equitable?
11
17.2 Reversing the Tides
Now consider the academic orientation that in large measure is likely to influence regional politics in a country like Mozambique, where everything relating to
the natural world is trapped on a tightrope: resource extraction paradigms at one
end of the spectrum, no-kill, no-harm at the other. In one recent graduate program
study in environmental planning, this range of activist ethics was broken down
into protracted units of ecological manipulation, formal and relentlessly tied to
the abstracted language of human development seen in study after study, nation by
nation: “…the proposed functional geoecological zoning regionally that determined
suitability of use and preservation in total protection zone; plant extraction area;
agricultural production area, family agro-ecological production area and environmental recovery zone…”
12
Such well-intended tactics, the stock and trade of environmental managers, tend to be far removed from the actual daily travails of people
10 See “Floods And Droughts In Mozambique – The Paradoxical Need Of Strategies For Mitigation
And Coping With Uncertainty,” by A. I. Mondlane, DOI: 10.2495/RISK040321, WIT Transactions
on Ecology and the Environment, Volume 77, 2004, WIT Press, https://www.witpress.com/elibrary/wit-transactions-on-ecology-and-the-environment/77/14312, Accessed March 24, 2019.
11 See “The Role of Equality in Negotiation and Sustainable Peace,” by Cecilia Albin and Daniel
Druckman, Chapter 7, pp. 131–152, in Psychological Components of Sustainable Peace, edited by
Peter T. Coleman and Morton Deutsch, Springer New York, 2012.
12 See “Geoecological Analysis directed to the Environmental Management and Planning of Sofala
province – Mozambique,” by Júlio Acácio António Pacheco, Federal University of Ceara, Graduate
Program in Development and Environment, 2014, Open Access, BDTD, http://bdtd.ibict.br/vufind/
Record/UFC_7e3e54b88a9febad4f365fd22ba36aea, Accessed March 24, 2019.
17 The Echoes of Malhazine
Proactive strategies called for to deal with ever-present droughts and floods is the
same eco-dynamic compact that is Mozambique’s ecological struggle.
10
Preparatory
methodologies for mitigating extremes of both weather and climate are largely
absent, or out of focus, in the country. Its political hierarchy harbors the same
misperceptions about the severity of climate change and what to do about it as most
other nations. Mozambique’s bottom-line poverty does not realistically make for
those core societal values (ecological rationality) that would be necessary to resolve
a populous completely out of touch with even mid-term survival (e.g., the next two
generations). Hence, a lack of the very grasp, let alone coordinated planning, of
biodiversity loss; notwithstanding the euphoria expressed by those who come to
parks like Gorongosa and can take legitimate pride in megafaunal numeric gains.
In those nations recovering from horrific internecine conflict, like Mozambique—
which veered toward communism after the exile of most of its remaining Portuguese
citizens, only to throw off that imposed socialist yoke in favor of a democratic process that has obtained for decades—other unanswered problems persist. Particularly,
the perceived notion of fairness in the distribution of wealth in human communities.
What is fair and equitable?
11
17.2 Reversing the Tides
Now consider the academic orientation that in large measure is likely to influence regional politics in a country like Mozambique, where everything relating to
the natural world is trapped on a tightrope: resource extraction paradigms at one
end of the spectrum, no-kill, no-harm at the other. In one recent graduate program
study in environmental planning, this range of activist ethics was broken down
into protracted units of ecological manipulation, formal and relentlessly tied to
the abstracted language of human development seen in study after study, nation by
nation: “…the proposed functional geoecological zoning regionally that determined
suitability of use and preservation in total protection zone; plant extraction area;
agricultural production area, family agro-ecological production area and environmental recovery zone…”
12
Such well-intended tactics, the stock and trade of environmental managers, tend to be far removed from the actual daily travails of people
10 See “Floods And Droughts In Mozambique – The Paradoxical Need Of Strategies For Mitigation
And Coping With Uncertainty,” by A. I. Mondlane, DOI: 10.2495/RISK040321, WIT Transactions
on Ecology and the Environment, Volume 77, 2004, WIT Press, https://www.witpress.com/elibrary/wit-transactions-on-ecology-and-the-environment/77/14312, Accessed March 24, 2019.
11 See “The Role of Equality in Negotiation and Sustainable Peace,” by Cecilia Albin and Daniel
Druckman, Chapter 7, pp. 131–152, in Psychological Components of Sustainable Peace, edited by
Peter T. Coleman and Morton Deutsch, Springer New York, 2012.
12 See “Geoecological Analysis directed to the Environmental Management and Planning of Sofala
province – Mozambique,” by Júlio Acácio António Pacheco, Federal University of Ceara, Graduate
Program in Development and Environment, 2014, Open Access, BDTD, http://bdtd.ibict.br/vufind/
Record/UFC_7e3e54b88a9febad4f365fd22ba36aea, Accessed March 24, 2019.
17 The Echoes of Malhazine