Thursday, March 28, 2024

Progress made towards inscribing the Barotse Plains as a World Heritage Site

Share

Barotse Floodplain from the sky Zambia  Photo by Stephen Hall 2012
Barotse Floodplain from the sky Zambia Photo by Stephen Hall 2012

Western Province Deputy Permanent Secretary, Mwangala Liomba, says good progress has been made so far towards inscribing the Barotse Plains, now called the Barotse Cultural Landscape, as a World Heritage Site.

Speaking when he officiated at the stakeholders’ consultative meeting held at Ngulu Hotel organized by the National Heritage Conservation Commission (NHCC), Mr Liomba revealed that since 2007 National Heritage Commission has been collaborating very well with government and the Barotse Royal Establishment on making the landscape a World Heritage Site.

Mr Liomba stated that the purpose of the meeting was for NHCC to create awareness and share information about world heritage issues while waiting the nomination of the Barotse Cultural Landscape, adding that its nomination dossier was undergoing refining.

Mr Liomba also said the other basis on the meeting was to form the pilot management committees comprising the Barotse Royal Establishment (BRE) and relevant government departments and institutions as this was a requirement.

The Deputy Permanent Secretary outlined that once the Barotse Cultural Landscape became a World Heritage Site, there would be need to manage it properly in order to deal with issues such as threats and concerns that could affect the landscape.

And speaking earlier, NHCC Executive Director, Collins Chipote, explained that his institution was approached on the issue that the country was having proper natural heritage sites that could be converted to universal values and among them the Barotse Cultural Land Scape.

Mr Chipote said it was for this reson that since 2007 to-date NHCC has been considering working on the Barotse Cultural Landscape on inscribing it as a World Heritage Site because of the culture and value of the people of Western province which should be properly reserved.

13 COMMENTS

  1. Kinda reminds me how our cousins across the Atlantic forgot to have a museum of native history until recently. With 72 tribes, there are probably 72 elements that could attain recognisable heritage status but we need to stop leaving it to someone else to spot stuff or to the internationals to give us a value…

    My great granddad hid ivory in a cave in some mountains as was their practice to store wealth. Any treasure hunter who wants the map can call me. It’s indecipherable but I suspect the cave paintings he described on the walls are probably of more value than what he was storing. I place the greatest value on his writing considering we were supposed to be illiterate with no written language back then…

    • Barotse will not make lozis vote for PF. the PF went to Barotseland to build a corner stone for a stadium, but up to now not even Chishimba Kambwili talks about it.

  2. See what I did there… I ignored everything the article had to say as it is part of the Hoorah Henry trip this weekend…

    Instead I will look at that beautiful picture above and enjoy the ‘cultural landscape’… what I genuinely and honestly love most about my relations is their ability to exhibit arrogance which oozes out when required. PF deserve the cold shouldering they will eventually get… in the meantime I am drawing unicorns and rainbows to keep from saying too much more…

  3. Careful, the former colonialists who stole Kabwe Man from us are still capable of grabbing this vast land and positioning it next to the Stone Henge for cosmetic purposes.

  4. I thought once the plains are considered as world Heritage Site there should be no activites like farming which may change the appearance of the plains with time. Please advise the benefits from a site as opposed to havng sugar plantations , rice and many more crops which need such soils and water.

  5. Those plains dont belong to Lozis. To call that area Barotse plains is to imply that they belong to a particular group called Lozis. The area has different tribes among them Nkoyas, Kwangwas, Mbukushu, Mashasha etc.

    To be fair before the plains are declared a world heritage site, the area should be named by a netural name like the Western Plains rather than Barotse plains because Lozis are a recent group to immigrated into that area very recently.

    If fact they are the last ethnic group to have migrated into that area from South of the Zambezi river.

    Mr Liomba must be objective and must not use his position to further some tribal agenda.

    • Nkoya Nationalist,

      There is no tribe called Lozi in Barotseland. Lozi is nation of more than 38 tribes and that is what makes the it, its lingua franca of Bulozi.
      Mbunda, Nkoya, Mbukushu, Kwangwa, Subiya, Mashanjo, Manyengo, Totela,Aluyi, Mashasha, Makomeni & many more is what Lozi is.
      In other words, there is no tribe in Barotseland is which is more Lozi or Royal than the other, they are all equal since 1830AD.
      Sir Mwanawina had Nkoya blood from the mothers side. Get your history right otherwise the KK one has mislead most people like you.
      Nkoya, Mbunda, Makomeni, Mbukushu & 34 tribes all form Lozi and please, hapula meto muchaha, nji kikezeli!

  6. @Skeleton

    Your post if full of Lozi propaganda. You want to label every tribe in Western Province as Bulozi and that is where you get it wrong.

    Just because Mwanawina was half Nkoya does not make all the languages and tribes who are in Western Province the same.

    People in that region just like any other tribe in Zambia have been intermarrying for a very long time and that was the case with your Mwanawina but that does not mean that we are all the same.

    And for the record, there has never been a place called barotseland in Zambia.

    So to suggest Lozi is the language of Western Province is just an imposition, trying to force your language on others when the have had their own languages for 100s of years.

    The problem with some Lozis is that you are shameless liars.

    • You’re absolutely right, Barotseland is a different country to Northern Rhodesia. On 24th October, 1964, the two protectorates signed an international contract, The Barotseland Agreement 1964 and that’s reality.
      Did Luapula, Chipata or Mporonkonso sign any conventions? Fact is NO!
      Remain in denial, real soon, you will wake up from your slumber.
      Lewanika (Unifier) accommodated in his Kingdom, some tribe from Angola and now want to mislead people, no way.
      The BA’64 is every “Zambian” birthday certificate, its like refusing your own parents or marriage partner and that should definitely reflect on your mind.
      Please, list all the tribes of Barotseland & surely, you will never find a tribe called Lozi but a nation of Barotseland, Chokwe, Totela, etc.

  7. In fact Mashasha, Shanjo, Awiko, Lushange, Mbwela and Nkoya and a few others out of the 34 “tribes” are all dialects of the Nkoya language and this language is spoken all over Western Province including the flood plains.

    In essence Lozis or the rest of the smaller groups are too few to claim to have their language as the ligua franca of Western Province.

    Truth be told, the barotse agreement made some of you grow big headed to the level were you were even lying about your own history to further a tribal agenda to create the imaginary barotseland!

    • Nkoya Nationalist,

      Please list all the tribes of Barotseland.

      Trust me, you will never find a tribe called Lozi in Barotseland.

      You see now and I quote you above that, ~”In fact Mashasha, Shanjo, Awiko, Lushange, Mbwela and Nkoya and a few others out of the 34 “tribes” are all dialects of the Nkoya language and this language is spoken all over Western Province including the flood plains”.
      That’s why I’m saying to you that there is no such thing as Lozi tribe, as they are all Royals and equal.
      List the tribes of Barotseland please.

  8. @ Skeleton

    I will not list the so called 34 tribes of Western Province because they dont exist. The truth is Western Province only about 12 tribes at the most and out of those 12 about 6 of them are Nkoya dialects. WP can not have 34 tribes when the entire population of the province only makes up about less than 20% of Zambia’s population.

    When l say Lozi tribe, l am really talking about the other 6 tribes that commonly speak the sisotho language which in Zambia is called Lozi and Sotho in Bostwana and South Africa were it came from originally.

    Since you claimed that barotseland has 34 tribes you list them so that we can see if your logic adds up.

    • Nkoya Nationalist,

      Prior 1830, the Aluyi were the predominant tribe with their valley Uluyi, Barotseland.
      1.Aluyi 2.Chokwe 3.Imilangu 4.Kwamashi 5.Kwangwa 6.Kwandi 7.Luvale 8.Lushange 9.Mbowe 10.Mafwe 11.Makwangwali 12.Maikwamakoma 13.Maliuwa 14.Mbukushu 15.Mbunda 16.Makwamwenyi 17.Mashasha 18.Mandundulu 19.Mayauma 20.Mambumi 21.Malukolwe 22.Makwengo 23.Mashanjo 24.Mananzwa 25.Makololo 26.Mandevu 27.Makwamulonga 28.Matotela 29.Mahumbe 30.Nyengo 31.Nkoya 32.Simaa 33.Subia and 34.Toka-Leya.

      Here is the history and knowledge of Barotseland.
      Tukongote Litunga Ni Lyetu!
      Kina kuzamaela kubona Ni Ku utwah.
      Stay Blessed,
      The Skeleton Key
      ~206~

Comments are closed.

Read more

Local News

Discover more from Lusaka Times-Zambia's Leading Online News Site - LusakaTimes.com

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading