Zimpapers Logo

Stephen Mpofu, Perspective

Nature is a store house of health and thanks to God for His creative novelty which has seen people, animals, birds and even insects engaged in seasonal marathons when health properties of the wild are in season.

Yet ironically, and because ignorance is no defence, people inadvertently destroy the properties of good health for both themselves and the lesser creatures and competitors for God’s natural pharmacies.

This discourse is about various varieties of fruits that are bound in different parts of Zimbabwe, courtesy of the One above for the love of His earthly creation and which Zimbabwe’s First Lady, Mrs Auxillia Mnangagwa, has gone out of her stately importance to brush with thorns in the bushes of our beloved country and with her trip to Mberengwa district a few days ago saw her working with villagers to conserve wild fruit trees with medicinal properties to beneficiate the rural folk, and so the message from her leadership is that the preservation of our forests is a matter of life and death because of the health derivatives that are bound in the bush for the health of all of us.

For instance, the baobab fruits fight in the prevention and reduction of high blood pressure and obesity when eaten as porridge according to one beneficiary who preferred anonymity.

Vitamin C contained in some fruits fights flu and colds and boosts human immunity against the coronavirus according to other beneficiaries who asked not to be named, with calcium in the fruits strengthening bones.

It is clear, therefore, from the above that wild fruits come handy to people in remote rural areas where access to pharmacies in urban areas for drugs to help fight negative health conditions including those mentioned above in this discourse are not easily reachable which therefore means the campaign to protect forests that boast wild fruit trees with medicinal properties are found should be intensified countrywide for the benefit of everyone there and some of whom may not have the money to buy drugs from pharmacies to bolster their health.

The First Lady’s foray into the bush, so to speak, comes in the wake of widespread deforestation by people bent on clearing land for agriculture, or for the construction of homes, or for firewood to sell in urban areas for cash to provide for their families.

It is no exaggeration to suggest that ignorance about human health benefits that are found in forests is no defence by vandals who decimate woodlands for whatever reasons and with their eyes wide open.

Add to the above a lack of knowledge by people about the important role that trees play in absorbing and sinking toxic gases pumped into the atmosphere from different sources and rendering the ozone layer, which protects earth from the dangerous rays of the sun wafer thin, and therefore causing global warming.

Recurrent droughts that have decimated crops in our country, with cyclone Idai which has visited the eastern parts of Zimbabwe and causing devastation in their wake – witness also recent catastrophic floods in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, in its wake, in which lives and property were destroyed and you (yes, you) are left with no shadow of doubt that global warming is a reality that people in our region must forgo any “much ado about nothing”, as William Shakespeare would say, but grab the climate change bull with its horns to save humanity from possible, further weather calamities.

What this clearly means is that remedial responses to global warming have become a matter of life and death and so Zimbabweans, in particular rural folk, must be inundated with educational campaigns to protect forests; otherwise desertification is bound to stare in everyone’s face in no time whatsoever and with telling effects on human beings as well as on wildlife with water sources drying up, as another negative effect of global warming.

Therefore, traditional leaders should themselves be educated to drive the campaign for conserving the forests in their domains of jurisdiction with members of parliament in those areas providing prudent leadership for durable end results.

Indeed, let us say health experts carry out extensive research in surviving forests throughout the country and present their results at a panel discussion at important events such as the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair herdsmen drawn from various parts of the country will provide strong corroborative evidence about the health properties about the wild fruits they munch with much relish – as do women harvesting firewood – while caring for their herds but which have suddenly vanished under the axe.

The possible outcome would be an outcry for resolute action in reaforestation in areas crudely denuded of woodlands in response to calls for exports from Zimbabwe to foreign countries, especially in Europe, where wild fruit trees with their medicinal properties are exotic but critical for their medicinal values.

This communicologist earnestly believes that such an exercise will serve as a key for opening new markets abroad for wild fruits to earn the much-needed foreign currency.

Credulous readers of this discourse might thumb their noses at what some might dismiss as “wild imagination” by this pen. But no one has been found guilty by any court anywhere in the world for imaginations intended to incentivise people to find better ways of improving their lot.

So, this pen blows the whistle for growers/developers of this country to have a go at turning wild fruit trees in various parts of our motherland into geese that lay golden eggs for our nation via wild fruit trees.