The Garden of Eden in Transkei

THE church has waited too long to carry on the development work God begun in the Garden of Eden. These are the words of development worker and retired priest Father Nceba Gabula in the northern Transkei. This area is one of the most beautiful but environmentally degraded areas in South Africa. In summer, the red scars of the cattle tracks and footpaths, deep erosion gullies and the muddy rivers hint at some of the environmental problems facing this fragile land.

It is also in this area that the Sustainable Agriculture and Environmental Education Programme of the Anglican Dioceses of Umzimvubu has been started. The education programme, which is headed up by Kate Davies, helps some of the poorest people in rural communities improve their use of land so that they can achieve food security as well as begin to restore their land. She says the garden projects have grown from strength to strength. Some projects have expanded their activities to include bread, net-wire, candle and soil-cement brick making. Others sell vegetable seedlings or chickens. Moreover, people are not only able to feed themselves from their gardens but they are learning skills and regaining a sense of dignity as they generate a small income. Restoring the land also goes hand in hand with environmental education. The programme initiates and supports environmental projects at schools and teacher training workshops.

A combined high schools' environmental club in Kokstad brings together young people from the black township and the elite private school. Ms Davies said: "They are discovering that social, political and economic factors all play a part in moulding their environment and have started a schools' recycling project. Ms Davies quotes Father Gabula as having said: "Our mission to go back to the garden of Eden, back to creation, is a call to liberation for the people of this region."