Editorial: Where is the line drawn?

WINDHOEK, MAR 1 – There was minimum yield as far as my crop is concerned, and due to low, if any rains. As a farmer, I am accustomed to selling my produce. This year, my crops can not sustain my family, and so I must find another option. The most immediate option is for me to sell my trees for at least N$400, and then I can support my family.

Whenever you experience a period of sorrow and dig you way out of it, then you are lucky to have emerged in on-piece “a testament to reality.”

There is a need to understand how and why people become a part of the process that shackle and transport trees.

Of course we can preach among each other that trees are sold at N$50 000 in the tertiary industry. We can also cast blame at those who sell the commodity. And yet, it is also wise to consider that if either YOU  (dear reader) or me ( the writer) were in a position to provide for example 20 trees at a price of N$400 each, then we would jump at an opportunity to get those dollars in the purse.

We are creatures of habit.

Every day city residents follow a rigorous schedule designed to get the most of different personas. What fuels this chaotic movement is encapsuled in a piece of paper that summarises a 30-day achievement – a payslip.

The youth abandon their culture and beliefs in order to pursue a life that has been painted Utopia.

Even if we live under trees as how our ancestors have demonstrated, will you sit under that tree in hunger? Does it make sense that I suffer while I am sitting on a gold mine that has the capacity to change lives?

For my children to go to school, for them to survive that, is a task that has its premises focused on their father and his ability to provide. 

Musa Zimunya.

 Protocol

Far be it for me to say, but I will mention that uncontrolled cutting down of trees is a dangerous ploy that warrants action. The question remains whether it is “better to feed my family” or if it is better to yield to the government.

While government preaches the preservation of the environment, it would be interesting for them to give a double-edged solution: one that can indeed address the farmer or individual who decides to sell the wood on their land, and also to accept there is a market, hence begin to orchestrate a pricing strategy that will generate income for the coffers that government overlooks.  – musa@namibiadailynews.info