THE same way India has Jadav Payeng, known as the
'Man of the Forest' after he single handedly planting an entire forest and
Kenya’s 2004 Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai, Livingstone has Benjamin
Mibenge.
Like the famous Jadav and Prof. Maathai, Benjamin
fondly known as Uncle Ben here in Livingstone has planted quite a number of
trees.
He is the one behind most of the trees planted in
Livingstone, some of them dating as far back as 1985.
He may not have planted a forest like Jadav, or won
a Nobel Prize like Prof. Maathai, but Uncle Ben is can be credited for being
behind most of the green vegetation in the tourist capital.
In fact, as Lusaka mayor Miles Sampa would clearly
confess, you may not cut down any trees in the tourist capital without facing
the ‘wrath’ of Uncle Ben.
One morning, while Mr Sampa was provincial minister,
he decided to bring down what he called overgrown trees at his house - a
ministerial residence.
That didn’t go well with Uncle Ben.
“Somebody just came up and told me that they have
cut down four trees in the minister's house. The following day, I went to the minister’s
office in the morning and I sat there for quite some time because I really
wanted to see him over the same,” he recollects.
Despite being told that Mr Sampa is busy and won’t
be seeing him anytime soon, Uncle Ben waited. “I said I will wait and when he finally came out, I
approached him and confronted him about the trees he cut down. He agreed and
said it was his house and he had every right to cut down the trees. He said
there were snakes and what not.
“I argued with him saying the house was a public
house and if indeed, there were snakes in those trees, he would have called the
Department of National Parks and Wildlife,” he recalls. Well, the heated argument, on that day ended with Mr
Sampa getting into his ministerial vehicle and driving off - angrily albeit.
“After two or three weeks, in the morning, I got a
call and it was from Mr Sampa. He told me that he was coming in a weeks’ time
to bring with him a hundred trees to replant at the ministerial house and
surrounding areas. I organised my members from the Chongololo club and we planted
a couple of them and continued with the rest at a later stage,” he says.
Since that day, Uncle Ben has but only nice words to
say about the Lusaka mayor. “It is from there that I have a lot of respect for
that young man [Mr Sampa] because very few people at the top would do what he
did - realise their mistake, accept and make amends. They are very few and up
to date, I really praise him for that. It was a heated thing but what he did is
something very few people in this world, at his level would do,” he says.
Uncle Ben, the conservationist was born on April 3rd
1945, in Mansa's Kalembula Village in Matanda area.
He is Ushi by tribe. "I grew up with my grandfather whom I share the
same name and it is from him that I learnt a lot of things," he says. He adds: "The things he used to do, you would
think that he was a very cruel man."
Uncle Ben says it was not until growing up that he
realised that the disciplinarian upbringing was actually going to yield
positive results in the future.
"He a very good environmentalist because of the
activities he was involved in. He was a hunter, a subsistence farmer, a
fisherman and a lot of other things. Most of these things, the was very strict.
If it was ploughing, he would always mix crops. If we went for fishing, he
would only use the appropriate nets, those starting at 3 inches and
above," he says.
He did his primary school in Kafue and his secondary
school in Mkushi at Nkumbi International College in 1968. "When I completed school, my wish was to become
a teacher, but my principal refused and suggested that I go and study art and
that is how I went to Evelyn Hone College," he says.
He was at Evelyn Hone College from 1971 to 1974. After graduating in 1974, he worked for the Zambia
Printing Company for one year and later went on to work for Zambia Information
Services (ZIS) now Zambia News and Information Service (ZANIS) from 1975 to
1985 as a graphic designer and exhibitions officer.
Throughout that time, the environmentalist and
conservationist aspect of him was always with him. "It’s something that is inborn because of the
people I grew up with, especially my grandfather who was always cautious of the
environment. When I started work in 1975, that’s when I started this thing of
planting trees and things like that. So, from 1975 to date, I have always been
planting trees.
He plants approximately 12 trees a week, translating
to over 25, 000 in a space of 44 years. “Wherever I go, each house I stayed in, I try to see
if I can plant trees,” says Uncle Ben who is a member of the Wildlife and
Environment Conservation Society of Zambia since the 1980s.
He is married to Selina Shwaba, his high school
sweetheart and they have seven children - three boys and four girls.
He moved to Livingstone in 1985 when he joined
National Heritage. “I was also an honorary member of the Wildlife
police and also an honorary member of the forestry department where I was very
strict,” he says.
He says while working for the National Heritage, he
attended environmental conservation trainings in the United Kingdom.
Asked why he has so much passion about environmental
conservation, Uncle Ben's retraces it back to his grandfather and a Sylvester
Chisumpa whom he worked with while at National Heritage.
“...he was working under a certain white man and we
worked with him for many years. He had a lot of passion for trees. He always
moved with a knife, he would crack trees and seeds and I only learnt that you
can actually plant indigenous trees,” he says.
Uncle Ben also recalls a time in 1989 when he
protested to First Republican President Kenneth Kaunda in one of his visits to
Livingstone to halt the cutting down of trees at the Munali Hills area.
“I took advantage of the President’s visit here and
wrote two placards saying ‘Protect the Munali Hills, the forest is going’ and
among the crowd, he saw the poster and he called me to show everybody what the
placards were talking about," he says.
He is now calling on people to continue supporting
him and his cause. “When I was starting, it wasn’t easy because many
people didn’t take me seriously. But today, that has changed,” he says.
Today, most of the trees planted within and around
the central business district were planted by him.
“Planting is the easier part, but taking care of
these trees is the most difficult. Many are times I have to push the council to
water these plants,” he says.
He also says there is a need for more awareness
campaigns to sensitise the people on the importance of planting trees.
This article was published in the Zambia Daily Mail Newspaper on September 12, 2019 on this link http://www.daily-mail.co.zm/uncle-ben-passionate-tree-planter/
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