Pensativities: Selected Essays

The Waters of Biodiversity

Biodiversity? The translator hesitated. His strained expression translated the effort he was making to find an equivalent for “biodiversity” in Xironga. He translated it by elephants. Then, he corrected himself: animals. Seated on the ground, the country folk couldn’t conceal their doubts. Whether it was elephants or all animals, the matter required more substantial explanation. And what about people? The translator saw a way out and shot back an answer: yes, people, animals, the land, all together. And he reinforced his words with a sweeping, encircling gesture.

This was the message we were bringing the people of Machangulo. The place is near Maputo, not more than fifty kilometres away. But life there isn’t just remote from the capital. It goes on in another world. This other world. Right there on the flank of the great city of Maputo, is one of the most underdeveloped regions of the country. There are few roads, very few schools, and almost no health clinics. In the complete absence of transport, the country folk travel vast distances on foot. The centre of gravity of their lives is not the capital in fact. It’s not even inside Mozambique. They look to the South, to South Africa, to Kwazulu-Natal. It’s there that they sell produce, and it’s there that they go to find work. It’s from there that their ancestors came during the Nguni migrations. Many of them speak Zulu, few speak Portuguese.

The meeting I was engaged in was part of a long project to elaborate a management plan for the district of Matutuíne, the southernmost coastal district of Mozambique. Down there, in the far south of the country, the headlands of Pontas de Ouro, Mamoli, and Malongane shimmer in the distance. Beyond these, nothing else shimmers. Or, if it does, it shimmers in some other hidden dimension. And so there we were, biologists and others, trying to put down on paper the infinite complexity of their daily lives. Our biggest challenge was to find, in biodiversity, reasons to embark on programs to generate wealth, and build bridges with modernity. This was to be done in such a way that biodiversity became a seed, instead of a concept; in the end, it was hoped that development would germinate from this.

The specialists, who had come from Maputo, looked at their schedule with an anguished consciousness of time. The experts, as they like to be called, are always in a hurry. As for me, I took delight in the gaps between work. Sitting on the shore of one of the many lagoons, on one of those leisurely afternoons, I didn’t notice evening falling. I sat there as if in rapture at the extraordinary beauty of the place.The dunes, covered in an intense green, resembled a motionless sea. The bottom of the hollows cushioned the slumbering lagoons with different colours. Van Gogh would be busier here than I. And he would be more productive. It’s here, in Matutuíne, that one of the richest regions of Mozambique can be found: rich in the diversity of its species and blessed with scenery that flirts with the sea, its mirror.

On that afternoon, I let myself cradle myself in the sluggish sensation of a world being born, as if from behind those dunes, gods were still emerging to create the universe. Is it possible the gods might display the haste and pompous air of the advisers from the capital? My situation might not, after all, be so far removed from that of the gods. For the local inhabitants, that lagoon was sacred. Fishing was prohibited there. On its shores, every February, ucanhu, the fermented drink with which they celebrated the harvest, was drunk.

The metallic sound of saucepans clashing together awoke me. What was happening? Women and men seemed determined to undo the tranquillity, which is precisely what they did: they were making noise to scare away the hippos. I caught sight of them, indolently waiting in the long grass, weighing the risks of venturing out into the fields where the villagers tended their crops. One of the men came over to me. He was carrying dried palm leaves with which he lit small fires. Saucepans and flames combined together in the task of chasing away these thick-skinned mammals. The man took the opportunity to accuse me:

“See? And you people come here to protect animals. .”

I didn’t answer. There would be little point in arguing. There would be little use in saying that animals and people can reach ways of living together and even benefiting each other. The countryman would listen with his usual good manners and timeless patience. But deep inside, he would remain fixed in his own sense of righteousness. What we need are examples, practical models that prove how our ideas work. And these models require time. The advisers don’t have time.

The following morning, I awoke with the sun. From the high point where I had put up my tent, one could see water on both sides. Towards the interior, there were the still waters of Maputo Bay, with the island of Inhaca and the wide estuary of the Maputo River. In the opposite direction was the limitless Indian Ocean, with its deeper blue. I made my way to the building where our meeting was being held, when someone informed me that the biodiversity had passed that way in the early morning. “Biodiversity?” I asked. There was laughter by way of a reply. It had been the elephants, a huge herd that had survived the war and poachers. They’ve been there forever, renewing the Futi Corridor that provides their link to neighbouring South Africa. One of the intentions of the Mozambican and South African governments is to protect this ancient route and turn it into one of the focal points for cross-border conservation. The fact that there is nothing in the region is, without doubt, a negative, but it can be turned into the opposite. The low population density, the existence of pristine dune forests of unique vegetation, and the potential for fauna, are all reasons to believe in the future of this place. Some years ago, an internationally known South African scientist, A.E. van Wyk, visited and studied this same region. The South Africans call the area Maputaland. Fascinated by its biological richness, Van Wyk made a proposal that Maputaland should be declared an endemism zone of universal importance. The region’s name began to feature in all the literature relating to biodiversity.

The inhabitants of Matutuíne don’t know the word. But they know perfectly well what biodiversity is. It’s not a conceptual issue. They live on the back of biodiversity. They survive in their little corner, which is so near and yet so remote. We need to create the bridge that will break their historic isolation, but let it be a bridge that both takes and brings in equal measure. And not one of those bridges built to take everything out without giving anything back.

Article published in İndico, April 2004.