Speaking at the recent annual Kulumba Traditional Ceremony of the Chewa people of Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia, held in Zambia, Malawian Minister of Local Government, Unity and Culture, Richard Chimwendo Banda said climate change posed a serious threat to his country and its people.
Banda called for a behavioural change and paradigm shift in Malawi order to rescue and preserve its natural environment for the future.
According to a report by the Malawi Voice, Banda emphasised the need for traditional and other leaders to take responsibility for educating their countries’ citizens about the calamitous consequences of mismanaging the environment.
“We must decide as people today how we want to live our lives in future. As parents, we must decide to leave a society better than we found it for the good of our children. If not, we are doing disservice to the next generation.
“The reality is that that we need a paradigm shift. The long-term effect of climate change, such as devastating droughts and flooding, pose a threat to humanity and will affect the socioeconomic development of the nation negatively,” he said.
The Kulumba event is held on the last Saturday of August in Katete, eastern Zambia. The ceremony is one of Zambia’s unique cultural practices and has been recognized by UNESCO as “artifacts of intangible heritage”.
The theme of the 2024 Kulamba Ceremony was ‘Ensuring food security by adopting climate resilient and climate-smart agricultural practices’.
Banda cautioned against the negative consequences of practices such as deforestation and unchecked burning.
About 66% of Zambia, for instance, is covered with woodlands and dry forests. Miombo woodlands cover 35,5 million hectares. In 2010, Zambia had 22,4ha of natural forest, extending over 30% of its land area. By 2023 the country had lost 190ha of natural forest, equivalent to 75,5t of CO2 emissions, according to www.globalforestwatch.org.
