REPORT WITH THE RESULTS FROM THE BBN WORKSHOPS IN MABALANE DISTRICT

Mabalane District – Mozambique August/2014

Pedro Zorrilla-Miras
01/10/2014

ACES PROJECT: LIVELIHOODS AND LAND USE CHANGE IN MOZAMBIQUE
WP 1 AND WP5

© University of Edinburgh

The method used followed always the “VillageWorkshops_Protocol_20150421” document. 
We did the workshops in August 2014. Each workshop took between 90 and 120 minutes. There were 8-9 participants in each, with between 2 and 4 women in each of them. We did the workshops in four villages of the Mabalane District. 

1.	Matlatibuti
18/08/2014
We realized 2 workshops, one with men and one with women. 
Mens´Worskhop: 6 persons. 
6 most important WB Components: 1-House+Family+Machamba, 2-Water, 3-Catle (and other animals), 4-Health, 5-School and 6-Forest.
It is also important the freedom of expression and thinking, how the decisions are taken, production of corn, Purchase capacity, protection against floods, forest (for construction pools, pastures), energy, market, children, wild food, hunting, honey, roads and cars. 

Figure 1. BBN structure constructed by the men group of Matlatibuti. 

Cattle is important to have money. Which means purchase capacity for food, clothes, shoes, beds, sits, for the hospital, for the school (fee and books), maintenance of water pumps, to buy more animals, for the construction (wires), to buy seeds for the crops. 
From the forest they use poles, medicinal plants, water for the cattle and for the farmland. Cattle and farmland are needed for providing food. Forest and pastures are also needed for breeding the cattle. 
They obtain money mainly from selling crops and cattle (comment by Pedro: and charcoal??).
Good practices to have a good forest are avoid forest fires. 
To obtain good pastures is important to have community meetings to zone the area and plan management. They do natural pastoralism (no active management of pastures). They are now using zoning for pastures. They cannot control pasture fires, so they do not do fire to obtain better pastures (Comment by Pedro: we do not know if this is biased because of the presence of 2 forest officers). They do not have problems of overgrazing, they have enough pastures and forest area. 
Farming practices: some of them use manure, but little of them because farmlands are far from the village and they do not have a way to transport the manure. They use fire only for burning big trees for opening new farmlands (Comment by Pedro: we do not know if this is biased because of the presence of 2 forest officers).   

Womens´Worskhop: 11 persons participated.
6 most important WB Components: 1-Water, 2-Energy, 3-Health, 4-School, 5- Roads, 6-Market. Others: house, cattle (and other animals), farms, money, food, charcoal. 

Figure 2. BBN structure constructed by the women group of Matlatibuti. 

They use the forest to produce charcoal, for firewood, to feed cattle, for farm. They have the farms at the riverbanks. They said that the forest is important for the machamba, I do not know if because if there is no forest there is no river….?? Or because for new machambas they use riverbanks with forest.
They find more animals where Mopane has been cut, because there is more pasture. After the cut of mopane, they still can use the area for machamba: after cutting mopane, they burn the rest of the vegetation and set there the machamba. For new machambas they can use forest after Mopane has been cut or before.
There is no problem to find firewood, it is everywhere. 

2.	Navumbuque
22/08/2014
6 men and 7 women participated. 
Good management practices: cut only the biggest trees, pruning of mopane trees, avoid forest fires, zoning, cut only those trees that are going to be used, follow state norms. A good family functioning is necessary to have successful community meetings. 
In sacred areas they do not cut poles and they do not do fires. 
They usually leave without cropping the machamba, for 1, 2, 3 years, and then they come back to cultivate it. No close to rivers. They select areas with productive soils. They use the forest to open new machambas when the soil is already depleted. 
They use wild fruits, but it does not matter if they do charcoal from Mopane trees, because in that case they do not cut fruit trees. 
The cattle usually feeds in no mopane forest, to nor compete with charcoal makers.

Figure 3. BBN structure constructed by the group of Navumbuque. 

3.	Tindzawene 
23/08/2014
Wellbein – Bem estar – Tsama Kwatsi
I do not have the names of the participants. 
A.	Wellbeing drivers:
1.	Liberdade de acção e pensamento (Freedom for actions and thoughts)
2.	Que o que pensa aconteça (That what people think, happens)
3.	Paz (Peace)
4.	Saúde (Health)
5.	Boa vizinhança (Good neighbourly)
6.	Comer bem – Segurança alimentar (Food securety)
7.	Dormir bem – Habitação (House)
8.	Accesso a água (Access to water)
9.	Machamba (Field)
10.	Criação de gado (Cattle)
11.	Represa (small dam)
12.	Hospital
13.	Escola (School)
14.	Electricidade (Electricity)
15.	Estradas – accesso (Access by roads)

B.	What they have today which provides them wellbeing:
1.	Represa (small dam) – the bore hole is not working because of bad mintanance
2.	Escola (School)
3.	Hospital
4.	Criação de gado (Cattle)
5.	Machamba (Field)
6.	Marula (wild fruts)

C.	Other stuff while discussing the relations between the drivers:
They do not used manure for machambas. They do not do compost from the animals or forest.  When there are pests in the fields all the village goes together and catch manually the pest (usually grasshoppers) and throw them into the water to dye. The fallow the machamba for 5 years, and then they come back again. They use the forest for new machambas. There is no forest management plan in the village. For poles they use Sanatse, Mopane, Gongua, S’andalo, Saqua (xanatsi, sandal, chaqua). They cut big and small trees of mopane according the different uses – small tress for poles and big tress for construction. They do not have simbiri for poles. They use Monzo (tsotso, monso, Sozo) tree for tools. They only cannot cut trees in the sacred forest.
They do not have land conflicts because of machambas. There are no land conflicts in the village for filed. Only for charcoal. For charcoal making they have some conflicts, because some people go into the area of other people. The leader deals when a conflict arise. They mark trees to know which are they areas. They attribute areas for the HHs according the trees availability;
The earn money from firewood, charcoal, animals. From fields when they have surplus.
They use money for building houses, to buy food, sugar, soap, clothes, petrol, diesel. To pay hospitals and school expenditures. To buy tools. To buy cattle. For marriage and weddings (lo bolo, la dote, wedding ceremony). They do not shell marula nor cazu (the gonvernment is now promoting these). 
 Those with money can hire people to build their houses, but those without money or who does not want to spend it can go to the forest and get the material to build a house. 
Do not sell wild fruits such as marula or caju.

Figure 4. BBN structure constructed by the group of Tindzawene.