Simmonds Layout 3 - World Agroforestry Centre

56 Pages·2006·5.05 MB·English

A L A M
AGROFORESTRY IN LANDSCAPE MOSAICS
Working Paper Series
Walking Well:
The Social Landscape of the Bakili Muluzi
Highway, Malawi
by Caroline Simmonds, MEM, Yale University
World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF)
Department of Ecological and Environmental Anthropology, University of Georgia
Tropical Resources Institute, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University
A L A M
AGROFORESTRY IN LANDSCAPE MOSAICS
ALAM’s Mission: To improve the science and practice of conservation through better
understanding of agroforestry and communities in landscapes that comprise agricul-
tural lands, trees, and protected areas.
Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
Department of Ecological and Environmental Tropical Resources Institute
Anthropology and the Institute of Ecology School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
Yale University
Copyright 2006 Yale University Tropical Resources Institute.
Citation: Simmonds, C. 2006. Walking Well: The Social Landscape of the Bakili Muluzi Highway.
Agroforestry in Landscape Mosaics Working Paper Series. World Agroforestry Centre, Tropical
Resources Insitute of Yale University, and The University of Georgia.
Publication design by Nicole S. Rousmaniere
Cover photograph by Michael J. Doolittle
In the beginning there was a river. The river became a road and the road
branched out to the whole world. And because the road was once a river it
was always hungry.
— Okri (1991:3)
Introduction
Throughout much ofthe world road building is viewed as a neutral development
tool favorable for rural farmers to have increased access to urban markets. The notion
that roads have a uni-directional and beneficial flow from rural to urban omits other
considerations. Recent research indicates additional outcomes: city vendors have the
potential to out-compete rural merchants, lives dominated by walking may be altered,
and compared with villagers living “off-road” those living “on-road” reap substantial
benefits (Fairhead 1992; Porter 1995, 2002; Wilson 2004). Highway construction sym-
bolizes development projects that have the potential to be powerful transformers not
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only of the physical landscape they traverse, but of the social landscape as well. This Landscape is defined
paper will explore the social and moral consequences of laying a highway where foot- using Eric Hirsch’s defini-
tion that “‘landscape’
paths once defined the movements of people from one village to the next.
entails a relationship
Investigating the social and environmental implications of a road building proj- between the ‘foreground’
ect in sub-Saharan Africa, I present research conducted in Malawi along the recently and ‘background’ of social
life.” The “foreground
paved Bakili Muluzi Highway, a major transportation route for the country’s Eastern
actuality” - place - and
Corridor. This paper addresses current social and environmental impacts of the high- “background potentiality”
way based on research conducted in two Amachinga Yao villages that border the new highway.2 - space - make up the con-
cept of landscape as a
The study of an independent variable, the paved highway, provides a useful lens
social process (Hirsch
with which to understand current trends concerning the unintended side effects of 1995:3,4,22).
road building. James Fairhead finds that in Zaire, “roads link the village with the out-
side world in a way which is qualitatively different from the links implied by the flow 2
The 1.2 million
ofgoods and people along local pathways” (1992:21). I argue that varying local percep-
Malawian Yao belong to
tions and inferred trends create a complex social landscape when a road building proj- three main clans:
Amachinga, Amangoche
ect initially transforms the physical landscape ofa rural region. The social landscape is
and Amasaninga.
defined through an analysis of perceptions regarding the body and the forest accord-
Research was conducted
ing to the Yao people who live at the side of the new highway. I suggest that the road among the Amachinga,
whom will be referred to
provides a place for exploration of spatial narratives. Local Yao perceptions of the
simply as the “Yao”
Bakili Muluzi Highway in southern Malawi reveal a broader social landscape defined
throughout the paper.
through narratives regarding the body and the moral behavior associated with move-
ment. The paved highway landscape is transforming the Yao worldview as those who
live both off- and on-road come to “know tarmac”.
This research is relevant in that it demonstrates the inherent linkages between
agricultural livelihoods, forest resource use, health concerns, and the paving ofa road.
Findings indicate that local appropriation ofthe new highway is one ofthe “unofficial
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Agroforestry in Landscape Mosaics Working Paper Series
outcomes” of this road paving project. The increasing spread of diseases, deforesta-
tion, and rising rates of accidents are unintended “side effects” of road building that
need to be recognized by the Malawian government (Ferguson 1994:252). Roads, often
espoused as being neutral constructions, are in fact politically charged interventions.
TThhee LLiitteerraattuurree
Environmental outcomes of road construction are seemingly straightforward:
paved roads “open up” previously inaccessible areas to development, settlement, farm-
ing, and deforestation (Hecht and Cockburn 1989; Laurance 2001; Nepstad et al.
2001; Trombulak and Frissell 2000; Wilkie et al. 2000). Susanna Hecht and Alexander
Cockburn describe the Trans-Amazon highway: “All along here deforestation follows
the road. Northwards towards Belem and the Amazon’s mouth, the same story
unfolds. With each road comes forest destruction on each side, and as these trees fall,
several species are extinguished each day” (1989:46). According to Daniel Nepstad and
colleagues (2001), as pavement begins to cover unpaved forest roads, surrounding
forests begin to fall up to eight times as fast as they do near dirt roads. By 1992,
Amazonian rates of deforestation, measured in terms of forest conversion to crops,
pastures and secondary forest rose from 0-9% along unpaved roads to more than 29-
58% within 50 km of paved roads (Nepstad et al. 2001:405).
An environmental Malthusian narrative of human-induced degradation and
deforestation has pervaded national African environmental policies and international
donor funded projects since the colonial period. Yet James Fairhead and Melissa Leach
showed in Guinea that rethinking the traditional environmental degradation narrative
from one of human-induced deforestation to one of human-induced afforestation
turns this seemingly straightforward narrative on its head (1995:1031, 1032). The
authors pose counternarratives for Kissidougou’s forest landscape that reveal planted
secondary forested areas or “village forest islands” around settlements in savannas over
the past 100 years (ibid. 1995:1027), counter to the perception that recent deforestation
has led to forested fragments. Likewise, viewing environmental destruction as the only
outcome of road paving eliminates the possibilities of other outcomes. While many
studies have shown that there are indeed severe implications for the forests, water-
sheds, and biodiversity of developing countries because of road building projects
(Chomitz and Gray 1996; Wilkie et al. 2000; Young 1994; Ziegler et al. 2004), envi-
ronmental outcomes should not be studied in isolation from the social ramifications
and local trends created through road building.
Using Piers Blaikie and Harold Brookfield as a guide to address the nature of
social and physical change, I adopt their “reflexive and two-way relationship” between
land degradation and society (1987:13). In the case of the new highway, this relation-
ship exists between the landscape transformation wrought by the road paving and the
Yao smallholder farming society that use and live beside the new road. The theory of
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Walking Well
political ecology Blaikie and Brookfield present will also guide this paper, encompass-
ing the ecology and political economy of the region’s “shifting dialectic between soci-
ety and land-based resources” (Blaikie and Brookfield 1987:17).
Road building has dramatic and important implications for the people who live
alongside these new transportation networks (Folmar 2005; Lye 2005; Masquelier
2002; Wadley 1998). Masquelier finds that “throughout Africa, tarred roads emerge as
transgressive spaces that enable people to go somewhere literally and figuratively, but
the roads also trap people such that they can neither move forward in time and space,
nor go back to where they were before the tarmac was built” (2002:833). Outcomes of
road paving schemes for local inhabitants are complex as individual perceptions, opin-
ions and experiences vary, in addition to the fact that proximity to new roads is
unequal across the landscape. Depending on one’s vantage point, roads can serve to
decrease distances or to create them. Anna Tsing describes the frontier landscape of
Indonesian logging roads: “For bosses and managers, the roads shrink and simplify
the territory, making it quicker to get from here to there. For most everyone else, the
logging roads expand landscape emptiness, separating off- and on-road sites and cre-
ating obstacles between once-connected forest places even as they speed the trip to
town” (2005:38). Social consequences of road building are often noticeable in
increased communication and transportation efficiency, access to local markets and
towns, immigration and emigration, and cash crop exports to regional markets. But
roads can also become obstacles of equity, dividing the off-road “periphery” from the
on-road “center”. As a result, the transformation ofa rural village may occur because of
the road that leads both towards it and away from it. The advantages for roadside mar-
ket vendors in northern Nigeria are greater compared to off-road villages that become
“more isolated, more unequal than before” (Porter 1995:3). There, village populations
are declining as “inhabitants ofbush villages migrate to the roadside” (Porter 1995:11).
Social norms and perceptions ofpathways, ofroadways, and ofmovement shape
and define a society that uses that new surface. Tuck-Po Lye (2005) describes the social
implications ofroad networks for the Batek ofMalaysia as they adapt from a world of
walking paths to an area bisected by roads. She notes that “directionality, or the move-
ments ofthe body, is what gives the notional ‘way’ its physical expression in the ‘path’”
(Orlove [2002:210] cited in Lye 2005:94). Her work demonstrates that in a reciprocal
fashion, society creates meaning out ofpathways as paths also influence the “social life
of people” (Lye 2005:94). In a similar vein, highways affect and are affected by their
users, symbolizing more than mere “lines on the land” (Orlove [2002:210] cited in Lye
2005:94). Adeline Masquelier’s “roadscapes” in Niger construct the road as “site of
memory, symbol of modernity, and space of articulation between identity and histo-
ry....Simultaneously sources of hope and fear, memory and desire, the roads in their
multiple configurations embody people’s conflicted, changing, and contextually dis-
parate understanding of modernity” (Masquelier 2002: 836-837).
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Agroforestry in Landscape Mosaics Working Paper Series
With road building, perceptions and trends are often blurred and complex.
Whether the road expands or shrinks the landscape depends on myriad factors – who
the user is, where they live, how they use and interpret the road, and what activities
occur on the road. In trying to examine the meaning of a newly paved highway, it is
3 helpful to consider both the social implications and their uncertainties. Teasing apart
At 12.6 million people
(UN 2005) and 117 the benefits and costs or the advantages and disadvantages of a road building project
inhabitants per square would be a partial and insufficient view. Rather, I seek to demonstrate that the out-
km, Malawi has the most
comes of building roads create a complex social landscape.
dense population in
Southern Africa (World Following the advice of Blaikie and Brookfield who argue for “an approach…
Bank [2002] cited in which allows for complexity, uncertainty and great variety, and one which takes as its
FAO [2003:34]). Malawi
point of entry those data which are beset with leastuncertainty” (1987:16), I present
is ethnically diverse with
20 ethno-linguistic groups findings based on markets, tobacco, and forest resource use followed by emic data of
in the north, seven in the local perceptions and trends. The discussion addresses morality in movement, illegi-
central region and five in
bility, and the unintended side effects of the newly paved road. Addressing these out-
the southern region
(Chirwa [1994] cited in comes helps us to better understand the social landscape ofthose who live, walk, drive,
Tellegen [1997:36]). The wash, and sell alongside a modern highway. This paper will explore the space and
southern region of Malawi
place of roads in the worldview of local Yao farmers. As Akhil Gupta and James
holds the majority of
Malawi’s population. Ferguson find, “the ability ofpeople to confound the established spatial orders, either
through physical movement or through their own conceptual and political acts of re-
imagination, means that space and place can never be ‘given,’ and that the process of
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The majority of their sociopolitical construction must always be considered” (1992:17). The social
Malawi’s population
landscape of a road is multifaceted and thus worthy of exploration.
(90%) depends upon agri-
culture as their primary
source of income. Like AAnnaallyyssiiss
many other farmers in
This study relies on primary sources ofdata from Malawi. From late May through
Malawi, Yao subsistence
August 2005, I conducted research along the Bakili Muluzi Highway to address the
smallholder farmers in
both Chowe and Idrusi social implications of the recent road paving and construction. Surveys, interviews,
villages grow maize, mil-
oral histories, and observations were collected with smallholder farmers in two Yao vil-
let, sorghum, pigeon peas,
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lages, Idrusi and Chowe, located beside the highway. Household surveys were con-
Irish and sweet potatoes,
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groundnuts, and cassava ducted regarding agriculture and agroforestry practices, perceptions ofthe road, mar-
for consumption. In addi-
kets, and forestry management practices. The Namizimu Forest Reserve is situated to
tion, tobacco is grown as
the north ofthe new highway and accessible by both villages (see Map 1). Indigenous
an export crop by both
smallholder Yao farmers miombowoodlands make up the reserve, which at 87,000 ha is the largest reserve in
and by large estates. 5
the Mangochi district. Traditional healers, or sinyangas, were interviewed as they are
Agroforestry practices, like
directly reliant upon the forests for medicines and upon the road for customers and access
planting fruit trees, pro-
vide seasonal fruits for to nearby hospitals. Findings are presented below (see Appendix B for research methods).
both local consumption
From the district capital of Mangochi, it is 16 km east along the Bakili Muluzi
and sale: mangoes, citrus,
Highway to the village ofChowe and another 8 km to the village ofIdrusi. From Idrusi
avocadoes, bananas, and
Uapaca kirkiana, known to the border with Mozambique is an additional 20 km. Idrusi village consists of 300
locally as masuku.
households and is bisected by the highway. Chowe village, denser than Idrusi, is divid-
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Walking Well
5
Miombowoodlands are
composed of Brachystegia,
Julbernardia, and
Isoberliniaspecies. The
miombowoodland con-
tains a high diversity of
plant species: 8500 species
of higher plants have been
recorded with 54% endem-
ic and 334 species are trees
(Rodgers et al. [1996]
cited in Frost [1996:12]).
Malawi has a total land
area of 9,408,000 ha with
27.2% of the country’s
land area in forest cover
(FAO [2001a] cited in
FAO [2003:19]) and 82
forest reserves.
MAP 1. Location of study area in Malawi; See Appendix A for regional map of Malawi
ed into 14 sub-villages. Research was conducted in Chowe 1, Chowe 2 and Liundi with
a total of1100 households. Due to their proximity and similar structure, these villages
will be collectively grouped and called “Chowe.” In order to be consistent with Idrusi,
a total of 30 surveys were conducted in these villages of Chowe (see Table 1).
TABLE 1. Socio-spatial characteristics of survey respondents
June-August 2005
VViillllaaggee IIddrruussii CChhoowwee
Total number of surveys 30 30
Number of female respondents 19 23
Number of male respondents 11 7
Number of female headed households (FHH) 10 16
Number of male headed households (MHH) 20 14
Average occupant size of household 5.9 6.4
Average size of farm (in acres) 2.8 acres 2.7 acres
Estimated distance of HH to Bakili Muluzi Highway 57 m 300m
(average given)
Distance to Namizimu Forest Reserve (by village) 300 m 200 m
Distance to Mangochi, the district capital (by village) 24 km 16 km
Closest weekly market Idrusi Idrusi
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Agroforestry in Landscape Mosaics Working Paper Series
Roads
AAffrriiccaann CCoonntteexxtt
Eurocentric models defined the formation of colonial states from Africa to
Indonesia where a system of roads increased political and military control, trade, and
economic development. Road networks were established in Britain’s African colonies
and in Holland’s Indonesia as a result of imposing the European model of develop-
ment onto emerging colonies. Modern roads were envisioned to be hard and clean,
tamed and smooth; an orderly example of European modernity in the colonial state.
“…the modern roads in the Indies had to be made all anew, and hard. The newness,
the hardness and cleanness – it was the roads’ modernity. Cleanness of the roads, in
this logic, was purity of times, democracy even, we might say” (Mrazek 2002:8).
Roads in their ideal state were proposed to bring order and cleanliness to the Dutch
colony. Yet through defecation, rain, dust, and other local “dirty” conditions, roads had
the possibility of becoming vectors of infection. Colonial roads were both harbingers
of state control and threats to the very states that built them.
Independent sub-Saharan African countries inherited a limited road network
established for “colonial exploitation and military dominance” (Martinez 2001:257)
that often linked mines to coastal ports. Yet there was an expansion of road networks
and road construction throughout the countries’ transition to independence during
the 1960s and 1970s. By the end of the 1980s, there were “nearly two million km of
roads in sub-Saharan Africa, including 610,000 km of main roads” (Heggie 1995:14).
Roads currently comprise nearly 90% of the region’s passenger and freight transport,
supporting all aspects of development of rural communities including health, educa-
tion, information, and market access (Riverson et al. 1991:1). Despite such positive
rhetoric, there is also a popular belief that paved roads have facilitated the original
spread of HIV-AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.
Notwithstanding the importance of roads in Africa, many roads built since the
1960s have deteriorated due to the lack of basic maintenance. “African countries have
spent far too little on routine and periodic maintenance during the past 20 years and,
as a result, nearly a third ofthe $150 billion invested in roads has been eroded through
lack of maintenance” (Heggie 1995:14). Unstable governments impede well-main-
tained road networks. The costs of restoration and reconstruction are prohibitive for
many emerging African democracies. During the past 25 years, the World Bank has
provided about US$1.7 billion in loans and credits for 127 projects to construct, reha-
bilitate, or maintain over 160,000 km of rural roads in sub-Saharan Africa (Riverson
et al. 1991:ix). Local rural road users often bear the economic and physical costs of
poorly maintained roads. One World Bank report states that, “while Africa is under-
equipped in relation to its potential it is overburdened by the little infrastructure that
it possesses” (Riverson et al.1991:5).
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Walking Well
MMaallaawwiiaann CCoonntteexxtt
As a rule these footpaths are marvelously direct. Like the roads of the old
Romans, they run straight on through everything, ridge and mountain and
valley, never shying at obstacles, nor anywhere turning aside to breathe.
— Drummond in Baker (1971:7)
Malawi’s early communication network was an intricate series of paths connect-
ing one village with the next (Baker 1971:7) and Arab slavers’ tracks (Perry 1969:23).
After European settlement, these networks were modified by road and rail building
initiatives. Malawi’s main waterways, Lake Malawi and the Shire River, historically
dominated trade and transport and helped to create the current shape of the country
as long and narrow — based on where the Europeans had settled. In 1891 the region
was declared a British Protectorate and this year marked the turning-point between
traditional and modern communication systems (Cole-King 1972:82,83). “The trade
routes of the traditional system which had degenerated into slave routes were elimi-
nated by force and the traditional network ofpaths began to be supplemented, and in
part replaced, by roads linking the centres of administration which themselves result-
ed in a shifting offocus oflocal life” (Cole-King 1972:84). Roads and European settle-
ment developed along north-south lines, eliminating traditional east-west trade routes
through Mozambique to the east and the Indian Ocean.
Beginning in the 1890s, Malawi’s modern system of roads was built to connect
British administrative centers and military outposts within the country with “supply
points” along the Shire River (Baker 1971:8). Roads were also built to aid missionary
and trading settlements (Perry 1969:26). Akin to Roman roads, Malawi’s early roads
were “generally planned as straight as the terrain would allow, seldom following the
traditional paths” (Cole-King 1972:86). The main north-south road to Tanzania was
improved dramatically during WWI, to “keep open supply lines to the troops in the
north” (Cole-King 1972:86).
Rail and river transport connected colonial Malawi with the rest of the world
prior to independence in 1964. Similar to the American frontier, “the railway was the
core ofthe Malawi transport system and roads were used primarily as feeders to bring
goods to the railheads” (Crosby 1980:112). Police posts were established at points
where rivers crossed Malawian roads, to ensure water availability for men occupying
the posts. These posts were established in response to incidents of theft and assault
along the roads. Along the Blantyre-Zomba road, all ofthese police posts have become
trading centers, attracting a population because of the security and protection offered
by the police (Baker 1971:18,19). Hilaire Belloc describes historical “nodal points”
where land roads cross rivers at bridges, intersecting two lines of communication and
travel (1925:26). At these interfaces between travel and trade, markets and settlements
were established.
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Agroforestry in Landscape Mosaics Working Paper Series
With independence from the British in 1964, communications with neighboring
countries became critical for transportation and trade development for Malawi. The
Nacala rail line built in 1970 through northern Mozambique linked land-locked
Malawi to the Indian Ocean ports. The Nacala Corridor is still an infrastructure focal
area for the Malawian government as it provides the shortest rail access to a sea port.
Today, Malawi is increasingly relying on highways over railways. The country has a
total of 28,400 km of roads: 5,254 km are paved and 23,146 km remain unpaved as of
1999(The World Factbook 2005). The European Community has been the major
donor in Malawi’s road reconstruction and improvement, based on the premises that
sound road networks lead to poverty alleviation and economic development. A
November 2005 update entitled “EU relations with Malawi” states the following
regarding transport and infrastructure:
Access is a prerequisite for poverty alleviation. At present, many rural areas
are cut off from the outside world during the rainy seasons, hampering eco-
nomic development by lack of infrastructure and non-availability of public
transport. Access is crucial to delivery of social services and to support eco-
nomic growth, e.g. markets and reliable delivery of inputs…. Road trans-
port is the only mode of transport that reaches the most remote areas of the
country (with the exception of some areas along the coast of Lake Malawi)
and that serves the widest variety of users.
—Europa (2005)
According to a recent article in Malawi’s national newspaper, The Nation, “road
transport systems in Malawi have become a central component of economic develop-
ment. By speeding up communications and the transport ofgoods and people, the sys-
tems have spawned a revolution in contemporary economic and social relations”
(Thawani 2005).
TThhee BBaakkiillii MMuulluuzzii HHiigghhwwaayy
The paved Bakili Muluzi Highway is an expansion and improvement of the old
earth road that was originally built in 1954 from Mangochi to Chiponde by the Central
African Federation. Tobacco farming expanded in the area throughout the 1940s and
1950s and was a key reason for the road’s original construction. The highway, named
for the former president, Bakili Muluzi, was paved and realigned beginning in early
2001 and completed by April 2003. This 136 km long highway parallels the border with
Mozambique and serves as a major transportation network for Malawi’s southeastern
region (see Photo 1). It runs adjacent to the Namizimu Forest Reserve and numerous
Yao villages. According to a 1998 feasibility study by Kuwaiti consultants, the road will
serve 700,000 people or 140,000 subsistence farming families (Unetec 1998:2-3).
The Bakili Muluzi Highway was built to promote economic, agricultural and
social development, and to facilitate the transport offarm products to commercial and
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