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Prosopis
joliflora; you like it, you like
it not |
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ADDIS
ABEBA(December 10,2008) - Before you go on reading
further, you might perhaps be reminded that Prosopis joliflora is
just a humble shrub with zero charisma.
It is known by other names, but no matter. It has no claim to much
serviceable economic virtue to anyone. In short, it can't hold a candle
to the likes of Eucalyptus or Zegba. Its greatest trait happens to
be tenacity. The more derelict a site is, the better it flourishes
in that place. So why has it set the agricultural office of the Afar
region on fire? Please read on.
Prosopis joliflora is an exotic plant which means somebody must have
sneaked it into the country from somewhere. So far, nobody has come
out to claim responsibility for doing so openly. But talk to the cognoscenti,
if you may, and somebody will surely know when it was that the plant
was brought in, by which office and in what way.
But that is not important now and those who imported it did so with
good intentions, anyway.
One of the important aspects of conservation is the restoration of
vegetation and functioning ecologies to derelict lands. I don't call
the Afar region a derelict place but it certainly is a semi-arid and
harsh environment. If you intend to vegetate this place therefore,
would you go for Prosopis joliflora? Given the narrow choice of plants
that can thrive there, you certainly would. And that is what exactly
the people in the Ministry of Agriculture did at the time (close to
3 decades ago).
As you might have heard it sometime last week on a Voice of
America Radio interview, some of the guys at the Agriculture
Bureau of the Afar region seem to be in fighting mood right now. They
even intimated that before long, the regional office will come up
with a law. What law? Well, they didn't say, but I am afraid the proposed
law may not be too friendly to the shrub.
But what exactly is the sin with this plant? Its relentlessness is
one. No repeated droughts or worsening desertification can halt its
onward march. No amount of overgrazing by any number of camels and
perhaps goats can eviscerate it. Besides, there is no love lost between
it and Homo sapiens in general.
Ah, the very qualities that make conservation plant of last resort
an ideal one. As we perhaps all know, the conservation paradigm of
semi-arid lands, on the main is, the practice of least human interference.
But if the decision is, for one reason or another, some sort of benevolent
intervention by revegitation., then what better thing to do than arm
yourself with a plant that is drought-friendly, least savored by animals,
least loved by anybody including government workers and in addition
a plant that gets more energized by worsening degradation of the land
by mining or quarries.
And one such plant is which has taken refuge at Afar region for a
few decades now. Ironically the colonization by the plant has given
large areas in the region a green visage; replacing a task that used
to be fulfilled by acacias before they were decimated by deforestation.
But it is interesting to note that at the same interview by the Voice
of America; another expert in the locality gave the shrub extraordinary
plaudits. The way the guy put it, the qualities of the plant exceeded
and went beyond conservation.
According to him, the plant is good for biofuel, its leaves have many
virtues including feed for animals, etc. Attributes many people didn't
know existed. True or not, the fact that the plant has earned some
supporters due to its supposedly hidden virtues, heralds that its
fate is not yet sealed even in Afar.
Many people including farmers think now that quite sizable areas in
all four corners of our country as having changed ecologically for
the worse over the years, to warrant a huge effort in restoration
efforts of their vegetation. The immediate priority is perhaps the
conservation of the soil resources through vegetative cover. Any plant
will do at this stage including Prosopis.
Once that has been done, the next phase could be the targeting at
introducing plants that have tangible economic values to communities.
So perhaps now, Prosopis joliflora has a role to play with some degree
of control strictly applied. |
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