Abstract
Culture plays a significant role in conserving the environment. The purpose of this study was to explore the measures that have been employed by the Tonga people of southern Zambia to sustain their local biophysical environment. The research focussed on investigating the strategies which they use to conserve the soil, water, animals, medicinal and fruit plants, and rangeland. A qualitative research design was used in the study. The data were collected through interviews with elderly Tonga people and herbalists, and through observation and personal participation in the daily life of the Tongas. The study reveals that selective harvesting, totemism and taboos, organic farming, crop rotation and intercropping, sacredness of water sources and traditional authority are the main instruments of environmental conservation amongst the Tonga. The article concludes that governments, policymakers and environmentalists need to give the conservation strategies employed by indigenous people the prominence they deserve for environmental sustainability.
Highlights
There is a global concern to safeguard the increasingly dilapidating environment (Obiora & Emeka 2015)
The Tongaland hosts numerous indigenous fruit trees; according to most of the elderly Tonga people and from the researcher’s observation, the fruits born from these trees include Masuku (Uapaca kirkiana), Mbula (Parinari curatellifolia), Nsombo (Syzygium jambolanum) Nchenje (Diospyros kirkii), Makunka (Hyphaene ventricosa), Makole (Azanza garckeana) Mfwulimuninga, Mawi, Maabo and Masau (Ziziphus mauritiana), Busiikka (Tamarindus indica), Mbubu (Vangueriopsis lanciflora), Fwutwe, Mang’ombyo and others
The Tonga people have generally ensured that fruit trees are left intact whilst other trees are cut to prepare fields for crops
Summary
There is a global concern to safeguard the increasingly dilapidating environment (Obiora & Emeka 2015). Ngara (2013) notes that indigenous knowledge is built by societies through generations, living in close contact with nature. The above issues require interdisciplinary and multidimensional approaches, which include the use of cultural construct, referred to as African indigenous knowledge system (Obiora & Emeka 2015). This knowledge encompasses norms, a system of classification of natural resources, empirical observations about the local environment and a system of self-management that governs resource use. He further argues that traditional beliefs, cultural mores and practices are significant in the successful conservation of the natural environment. Culture has played a crucial role where environmental resources are under threat. Grenier (1998) adds that indigenous people with historical continuity of resource use practices often possess a broad knowledge base of the behaviour of complex ecological systems in their abilities
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