Western Bahr El Ghazaal (WBEG), South Sudan - Part I
IOM Consultant Reintegration Expert in Greater Bahr El Ghazaal
From March 2011, I was employed by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), as Consultant Reintegration Expert for the IOM's Demobilisation, Disarmament and Reintegration (DDR) Program for former Sudan Peoples' Liberation Army (SPLA) soldiers in the States of Warrap, Northern and Western Bahr El Ghazaal that make up the region of Greater Bahr El Ghazaal (GBEG).
During this period I travelled extensively in GBEG, reviewing livelihoods options and interviewing former SPLA fighters and others, some of whom had benefited from a package of support intended to facilitate their reintegration into rural South Sudan. The result was a report on a "Labour Market and Natural Resources Assessment: Livelihoods Opportunities for the reintegration of demobilised militia and for Women in the Host Communities in northern and western Bahr El Ghazaal and Warrap States" - with recommendations that were intended to inform and improve the rural livelihoods re-establishment support provided by IOM to re-integrees.
Western Bahr El Ghazaal State
Geography,
administration and ethnology of Western Bahr El Ghazaal
The state of Western Bahr El Ghazaal
(WBEG), bordered to the West by the Central African Republic (CAR), to the
South by the state of Western Equatoria, to the East by Warrap state, and to
the North by Southern Darfur, Northern Bahr El Ghazaal and Southern Kordofan,
comprises an area of some 93,900 km2. The area is principally inhabited by the
Balanda, Jur Chol (Luo) and the Fertit (includes the Kreish, Banda and Binga).
WBEG, with a population of
approximately 333,431 people[1],
is administratively divided into three counties (Wau, Jur River and Raja),
which are further divided into some 16 payams. In early 2011, the county
headquarters for Jur River County was still undecided. Raja is the county
headquarters for Raja county, and the county headquarters for Wau county, Wau
town, is also the state capital and the second largest town in South Sudan
after Juba.
Livelihoods in Western Bahr El Ghazaal
Livelihoods in WBEG are predominantly
(64%) rural and principally based on crops-based agriculture, supplemented with
livestock production (cattle, goats, sheep, and scavenging poultry) and the
harvesting of fish and forestry products (timber, charcoal, wild foods (fruits
leaves and tubers) and honey).
WBEG has enormous unexploited agricultural
potential and the capability to become a food-surplus state. With increasing inter-state linkage of
markets through major improvements in the road network, opportunities abound
for marketing surplus crop production and reducing dependence on crop
production in the north. Every
opportunity should be taken to provide support to agricultural production based
livelihoods through the provision of simple and easily serviceable technology
(eg. replacing the maloda with the East African hoe or ox plough, introducing irrigation
through the shaduf, washer or treadle pumps), farmer training and strengthening
of marketing.
Livestock production, particularly of
cattle, probably has not the same importance, to the household economy of the
average household in WBEG, as crop production.
Though some large herds of cattle belonging to Jur agropastoralists were
seen, the majority of rural households in WBEG own few cattle. One key informant interviewed near Mapel in
Jur River county advised that some years ago he had kept a herd of more than
150 cattle, but they had all been raided during the years of conflict, and
today he has no cattle. Small stock,
particularly goats, to a much lesser extent sheep, and scavenging poultry, all
play a more important role than cattle in contributing to the average household
economy in WBEG.
In certain areas, notably between
Sopo and Raja in the NW of WBEG, the forest is heavily infested with tsetse fly
(identified as Glossina morsitans)
the cyclical transmitter of trypanosomias in livestock and sleeping sickness in
humans. In this area are “Umburoro”
(West African Fulani herdsmen), who somehow manage to survive with their cattle
– probably by avoiding the worst areas and by injecting their livestock with trypanocidal
drugs (the latter confirmed by a trader in Raja selling large quantities of
trypanocides).
Fishing with spears, lines, nets and
traps from rivers, streams, swamps, and seasonally river-flooded roadside dams
created by road constructors, is an important contributor to food security,
especially for households living in close proximity to rivers, eg. at Thar
Kueng, Fongo, Sopo, Raja, Bussera, and Raffili.
Fishing and the sale of both fresh and dried fish in local markets are
also important income generating activities, and it is clear that, mainly due
to a lack of investment in cold chain transport and market storage and the high
perishability of fresh fish, that the market demand for fresh fish is rarely,
if ever, met. While dried fish are
traded over considerable distances, no evidence was found of significant flows
of international trade – viz. the trade in dried fish with central African
countries, that historically existed.
Agro-Ecology
of Western Bahr El Ghazaal
Apart from a small area in the
South-West of the state, bordering the CAR and Western Equatoria which is
greenbelt moist forest, and in the NE near Kuajok (categorized as the “Western
Flood Plains”), WBEG is almost exclusively located on the great “ironstone
plateau” of South Sudan, an area characterized by acidic lateritic soils of
generally low intrinsic fertility, and broad leaved wooded savannah. The relatively high rainfall in this area (in
excess of 1,000 mm per annum tends to leach nutrients out of the crop root zone
and this is essentially the reason for the evolution of shifting slash and burn
cultivation that makes available to shallow-rooted crops the nutrients that can
be “pulled” from lower down by the deeper-rooted tree cover, when cut down and
burned.
The long rain season (from April to
November) favours the production of a range of crops, and probably because of
the effort involved in clearing an area of land for cultivation, relatively
intensive use, through inter-cropping, is made of the relatively small areas
(generally not much more than one feddan[2])
that are cleared, to grow mainly dhurra (long-duration open panicled Sorghum vulgare), but also sesame (Sesamum indicum), cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) and, on sandy soils,
groundnut (Arachis hypogaea), and
bambarra groundnut (Vigna subterranea). Small surpluses of sesame, groundnut and
dhurra are taken to market, or may be processed into and consumed or sold as
sorghum beer or groundnut paste. The
production of sorghum beer is a widespread small-scale industry throughout
Greater Bahr El Ghazaal. Other crops,
including bulrush or pearl millet (Pennisetum
glaucum), finger millet (Eleusine
corocara), maize, beans and cassava, are also grown.
Two short perennial crops are
potentially useful in the area and should be promoted where possible – One is the
tuber crop, cassava (Manihot esculenta),
which is occasionally seen; the other is a pulse, pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan).
Much use is made of wild plants and
fruits, and they are also collected and sold in local markets. During the rains wild Portulaca is also harvested and sold as the leafy vegetable “Regla”
in the market. Mangos are abundant in and
around the major urban centres in WBEG and in season (March to July) are to be
found for sale in local markets. Surplus
mangos are sliced and crudely sun dried for storage. Borassus palms (Borassus aethiopum) known as “Dilep” are widespread and
the fruits, as well as the sprouted roots (“Aluf”) are eaten with the latter
sold in markets. The thorny shrub, known
as “limo” (Ximenia caffra) is
widespread and produces small sour orange fruit that are much appreciated,
eaten raw and for production of an alcoholic drink. In other parts of Africa an edible non-drying
oil, with good keeping qualities, is extracted from the single seed and used as
a cosmetic skin and hair oil and to soften leather. The yellowish wood is scented and resembles
sandalwood. By far the most important
tree oilseed in WBEG is however, the shea butter/lulu nut tree (Vitellaria nilotica), which is both
widespread and abundant in parts of Western Bahr El Ghazaal, eg. in the area
around Mapel, where a lulu nut processing factory has been established. Lulu nuts are collected during the season,
stored and used at the household level to produce an edible oil for
cooking. Surplus production is also sold
in local markets.
The most important and most obvious
natural resource in the state of WBEG is the forestry resource. The forests contain a number of important
hardwoods including African mahogany (Khaya
grandifolia and Khaya senegalensis)
and there are also areas where extensive teak (Tectona grandis) plantations were established (eg. between Wau and
Bazia), though cut down during the war years and now regenerating. Partly because it is illegal to cut mahogany
or teak without a government licence, the most intensely utilized hardwood is
iron wood, Prosopis Africana, which
is widespread in the forests of WBEG, known locally as “Amsaruch” and produces
a fairly heavy, fine-grained, termite-resistant wood, used for carving pounding
mortars, fencing and building poles. The
tree is also one of the principle species used for fuelwood (especially for the
brick kilns) and for the production of charcoal, on which so many depend as a
source of income. Collected dry pods
have been seen piled for later grinding and use as fish poison. The forests also provide the habitat and
flowering trees used by bees to produce honey, the harvesting of which can be
an important seasonal source of income.
In some areas (eg. between Thar Kueng
and Kuajok) the open wooded grassland is dominated by a shrub/small tree, Piliostigma thonningii or “Pac” (Dinka),
the most obvious feature of which are the bi-lobed leaves, which give the tree
its common name of “Camel foot” and the numerous large black/rust red
indehiscent pods. The bark from the
branches strips easily and is used to make rope or to tie roofing poles
together. The pods are extremely
nutritious and browsed by cattle and wild ungulates. Occasionally pods are collected by cattle
herders to feed to calves kept at the kraal.
It is considered that this is an extremely under-utilised resource that
could easily (the tree is not armed with thorns) be collected, processed
(ground) and used in ruminant and poultry feeds.
In the wetter areas, bamboo forests
occur. Bamboo canes, cut and transported
by lorry from these areas to the outskirts of major towns such as Wau, are used
to weave split bamboo fences, an industry that employs large numbers of people,
given the almost exclusive use of bamboo or grass fences around urban household
compounds.
Certain grass species from seasonally
flooded areas are cut and bundled and used either (dependent on species) for
thatching houses (Hyparrhenia rufa) or
woven into fencing panels. Large numbers
of people are employed in cutting and bundling grasses for own use, weaving
fences or thatching roofs, or selling the bundles in local and state capital
markets.
Whereas bamboo canes and grass can be
sustainably harvested, for many people in rural areas with access to markets,
the cutting and burning of hardwood trees for charcoal production is an
important (though potentially environmentally destructive) source of
income. At present, in early 2011, in WBEG, this
business remains in the hands of individual rural producers, who transport 2-3
sacks of charcoal per day to market, mainly by bicycle. However, with increasing demand for charcoal
in the towns and for logs to fuel the brick kilns, it is only a matter of time
before the collection, transportation and sale of fuel logs and charcoal
becomes organized on a bigger scale. As
far back as 1993, FAO estimated that the annual
rate of deforestation in the Sudan was approaching five hundred thousand
hectares, one of the highest in Africa (FAO Project: Forestry Development in
Sudan, 1993).
Markets of
Western Bahr El Ghazaal
With rapidly developing major inter-state
arterial murram road networks (eg. from Wau to Aweil, Wau to Warrap, Wau to
Tonj, Wau to Deim Zubeir), the markets of WBEG are becoming increasingly
integrated. Primary supply of most
consumer, and all manufactured goods to these markets is still through trade
from North Sudan, principally from Khartoum.
Primary sources of most staple grains in the markets in March/April 2011, are mainly Darfur, Kordofan and north to Omdurman and
Khartoum. Virtually all vegetables,
including perishables such as tomato, are retailed in markets at high cost,
typically SDG 12 (US$ 3.75) per kg, as are being supplied from Khartoum. A limited range of leafy vegetables –
“Khudra” (Jute, Corchorus olitorius),
“Regla” (Common Purslane, Portulaca
oloracea), “JirJir” (Garden rocket, Eruca
sativa) and “Figil” (Egyptian or White Radish, Raphanus sativus) are grown and sold in local markets. Fresh, dried or ground “Bamia” (okra, Hibiscus esculentus) is grown to a
limited extent locally, but is the most widely available vegetable product,
usually presented dried (“weka”) in the markets.
Given
several major river tributaries to the Upper Nile flowing through GBEG, the
large areas of seasonally river-flooded land in the “toich”, the enormous,
under-utilised and varied fish resource and the high and largely unmet consumer
demand in local markets for fresh and dried fish, the fishing sector should
provide good livelihood opportunities, particularly in areas with fisheries potential and access to local markets.
A few of the more than 118 species of
fish to be found in the waters of the Upper Nile and tributaries:
 |
| “Bayada” (Arabic) – Bagrus bayad |
 |
| “Higil” (Arabic) – Nile Perch |
 |
| “Garmout” (Arabic) – Mudfish (Clarias spp.) |
 |
|
“Harishe” (Arabic) –
Perch (Distochodus spp.)
|
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| “Kawara” (Arabic) – Silverside (Alestes spp.) |
 |
| “Kass” (Arabic) – Tiger fish (Hydrocynus vittatus) |
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| “Bulta” (Arabic) – Tilapia (Oreochromis nilotica) |
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| “Gorgor”/”Morhoq” (Arabic) - Synodontis catfish |
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| “Dabsa” (Ar.) – African carp (Labeo spp.) |
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| “Shurta” (Ar.) – Vundu catfish (Heterobranchus spp.) |
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| “Nock” (Arabic) – Heterotis (Heterotis niloticus) |
 |
|
“Khasum banaf” (Ar)
- Elephant snout (Mormyrus spp)
|
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| “Silboya” (Arabic) – Silver catfish |
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| “Makana timsa” (Arabic) – Phyllonenus spp. |
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| “Baranga” (Ar.) – Afromastacembulus frenatus |
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| “Bulta” (Arabic) – Tilapia (Oreochromis nilotica) |
 |
|
“Kawara saf saf” (Arabic)
– True big-scale tetra (Brycinus macrolepidotus)
|
With a lack of refrigeration, preservation is mainly dependent on roasting, sun-drying and with oily fish, mashing into "Mandesha":
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| Fish drying at Fongo, Western Bahr El Ghazaal |
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| Fish drying (Alestes sadleri) in sun at Fongo, WBEG |
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| Fish ("Khasum banal” - Mormyrus spp.) drying in sun at Fongo, WBEG |
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| Bundle of dried fish (“Garmout” - Clarias spp.), Fongo, WBEG |
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| “Mandesha” – Pulverised dried oily fish (typ. Alestes spp.) |
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| Roasted Catfish for Sale in Wau |
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| Dried fish (“Bayada”) retailing – Wau market |
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Wholesaler stock of dried
fish (“Garmout” and “Bayada”) in Wau market
|
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| Stockist of "mandesha" and dried fish (“Garmout” and “Bayada”) in Wau market |
Given the length of this 4th posting on the Blog, which has focused much on the fisheries resource of Western Bahr El Ghazaal, a 5th posting (Western Bahr El Ghazaal - Part II), will concentrate on other aspects of renewable natural resources and rural livelihoods in Western Bahr El Ghazaal.
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