An overview of the state of the environmental movement in Zambia: a status report

This report presents the findings of an overview of the environmental movement in Zambia. The paper indicates that Zambia is mainly a primary commodity producer of non-renewable resources that require special care, management and application. Therefore, environmental and resources management are critical.

The paper argues that the major environmental challenges include conservation and management of biological and water resources; planning for and managing the use of land; managing biotechnology; managing waste from productive processes and managing the impacts of climate change.

The main findings include:

• there is a developing environmental movement in Zambia
• the sector legislation has been highly centralised and monopolistic
• a significant weakness in existing environmental law is the codification of international treaty agreements into national law
• implementation of legal instruments is compromised by problems of capacity at national level, district and local levels
• the implementation of national instruments is affected by the weak financial situation of environmental agencies
• Zambia has very few local NGO’s in environmental advocacy, and different organisations have dissimilar sets of principles and procedures, overlapping mandates and different priorities
• new environmental organisations have failed to adapt to new challenges which has resulted in the failure to institute effective regimes for the management of environmental resource.

The paper recommends that:

• lobby and advocacy work will require input from organisations that are independent – which presents a case for civil society participation
• the focus should be on social transformation desired in a particular community
• it will be important to provide linking communities with NGO’s that are strong service providers and that can provide the type of support local level institutions will need
• it will be important also for local level NGO service providers to forge links with national level NGO’s that have proven ability in advocacy.