Overview

G. Kowero

Project Co-ordinator, CIFOR Regional Office for Eastern & Southern Africa

73 Harare Drive, Mount Pleasant, Harare, Zimbabwe Tel.: 263-4-369655/6, 301028,369595. 26311608489 Telefax: 263-4-369657 E-mail: [email protected] 

Articles presented in this special issue are drawn from research findings of the project “Management of Miombo Woodlands”. This is being implemented in five Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) countries (Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania) by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) in collaboration with the Institute of Environmental Studies (IES) at the University of Zimbabwe and other partners from the region. The project seeks to increase our understanding of the management and use of the miombo woodlands, to show how different policies influence people-woodland interactions, and environmentally friendly ways of harvesting the woodlands for industrial purposes. The project is implemented as three interrelated sub-projects with the main foci on policy impacts, governance issues, and low impact industrial harvesting of woodlands.

Sub-Project No 1: Institutional Arrangements Governing the Management of Woodlands in Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Malawi

The move to local control of forests and wildlife is now well advanced throughout the World, and has begun to take place in southern Africa. Despite the policy commitment to ‘community-based’ natural resource management (CBNRM), there is accumulating evidence, both documented and anecdotal, that many of the so-called CBNRM programmes are not community-based at all, but have merely resulted in a shift in power from one level of authority and control to another. A lack of clarity regarding the roles of the institutions governing CBNRM in a range of issues including land allocation and natural resource management, complicates and politicises the implementation of CBNRM, and results in competition for power, recognition and control that deflects the focus away from the real target of these initiatives, the local community itself.

The thrust of the sub-project is to contribute to this growing awareness of potential for involving local communities, private sector and other stakeholders in natural resource management. It aims to identify values of woodlands that stimulate the promotion of private and local community-based systems of management and control of woodlands. The sub-project also assesses the role and potential of local community institutions to manage woodlands, as well as the relationship between commercialization, institutional change and economic reforms.

Sub-Project No 2: Impact of Sectoral, Intersectoral and Macroeconomic Policies on Miombo Woodland Management and Use in Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique

Various policies, including national economic reforms and democratization pressures, are argued to have influenced the way communities relate to natural resources. These interactions have had contradicting impacts on the communities as well as on their environment. This sub-project seeks to evaluate how some selected policies are impacting on local communities and industry and how responses to these policies are affecting woodland resources development and management. The project has built some models capable of demonstrating the effects of these policies on people and their woodlands. We think that the issues of poverty in the southern Africa region are to do mainly with rural incomes, food security and environmental stability, although of course there are other issues like literacy, housing, health etc. These are the main rural development goals in the region. The models demonstrate how these goals can be harmonized in a sustainable manner, starting at the household level, and making use of forest resources, agricultural crops, livestock, and off-farm employment. Further, the models are capable of demonstrating the impact on people and forests of different community based management approaches. As such the models are useful not only to foresters, but to rural development planners in screening potential development scenarios.

Sub-Project No 3: Environmentally Sound Harvesting in Miombo Woodlands of Zambia and Tanzania

The woodlands are thriving on fragile soils. Use of heavy machinery for their harvesting not only impacts on the remaining vegetation but on the soils and other organisms they might support. This sub-project aims to develop strategies for industrial harvesting practices that will compliment the management and use of the woodlands on a sustainable basis.

This issue of the Zimbabwe Science News focuses mostly on the Zimbabwean case studies from the Management of Miombo Woodlands project.

Funding: European Community and CIFOR

Much as the funding comes from the European Commission (EC) and CIFOR. The opinions expressed in these articles are solely those of the authors and in no way represent those of the EC and CIFOR.

 

 

Organising for community-based natural resources management

B. Campbell^1,2 and S. Shackleton³

¹ Center for International Forestry Research, Bogor, Box 6596, JKPWB, Jakarta 10065, Indonesia

² Institute of Environmental Studies, University of Zimbabwe, P O Box MP167, Mt Pleasant, Harare

³ Department of Environmental Science , Rhodes University, Grahamstown,6140 South Africa.

Abstract:

There has been a move to decentralize natural resource management (NRM) throughout southern Africa but this has taken many forms, resulting in different organizational structures. Fourteen case studies from eight countries can be classed into four types, depending on the key organizations for NRM: district-level organizations; village organizations supported by sectoral departments (e.g. Village Forest Committees); organizations or authorities outside the state hierarchy (e.g. traditional authority, residents’ associations), and corporate organizations at the village level (e.g. Trusts, conservancies, property associations). Attitudes towards district-level schemes amongst local people are generally negative. The greater the authority village organizations receive the more likely they are to succeed. In the cases of corporate organizations, local residents have received user or proprietary rights over resources. Such cases indicate the best chances of community-based natural resources management (CBNRM) being successful. The impact of private sector stakeholders can be positive or negative depending on the institutional arrangements in place. Many of the cases have demonstrated the key role that external facilitation plays in building the capacity of local organizations. Traditional leaders have continued to play a role in NRM, with varying degrees of authority and control.

 

 

 

Can common property resource systems work in Zimbabwe?

B.Campbell^1,3, W. de Jong¹, M.Luckert², A.Mandondo³, F.Matose⁴, N.Nemarundwe³

¹ Center for International Forestry Research, Bogor, Box 6596, JKPWB, Jakarta,10065, Indonesia

² Dept. of Rural Economy, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AlbertaT6G2H1, Canada

³ Institute of Environmental Studies, University of Zimbabwe, Box MP 167, Mt Pleasant, Harare, Zimbabwe

⁴ Forestry Commission, P O Box HG 595 Highlands, Harare and CIFOR Regional Office for Eastern and Southern Africa, 73 Harare Drive, Mt Pleasant, Harare, Zimbabwe

Abstract

Common property resource (CPR) management approaches are now thought to provide a viable alternative to natural resource management. Our investigations on common property issues for woodlands in communal areas in Zimbabwe reveal numerous cases showing a breakdown of local institutions for CPR management, and the lack of any emerging alternative institutions for such management. A number of economic, social and ecological factors contribute to these problems. We argue that current institutional systems are rooted in norm-based controls contrary to the formal rule-based systems that form the cornerstones of the proposed CPR systems. We suggest that interventions that propose CPR systems need critical analysis.

 

 

Evolution of land policies and legislation in Malawi and Zimbabwe: Implications for forestry development

C. Mataya ¹, P. Gondo^2, and G. Kowero³

¹ Agricultural Policy Research Unit, Bunda College, University of Malawi, P O Box 219, Lilongwe, Malawi

² Southern Alliance For Indigenous Resources, 10 Lawson Avenue, Milton Park, Harare, Zimbabwe.

³ Center for International Forestry Research, CIFOR Regional Office for Eastern and Southern Africa, 73 Harare Drive, Mount Pleasant, Harare, Zimbabwe.

Abstract

This paper describes the effects of the colonial and post-colonial land policies and legislation on the management and utilisation of natural woodlands in Malawi and Zimbabwe. The two countries share similar patterns of land ownership; customary or tribal trust land designated by colonial governments for settlement and cultivation by the indigenous populations; private land mostly alienated from local communities for commercial farming and ranching, initially by white settlers and later officially sanctioned by post-colonial governments; and public land appropriated by government for purposes of establishing national parks and forest reserves. The private and public land tenure, did not only reduce the size of land available to indigenous communities for agricultural and non-agricultural activities, but also compromised the roles and power of traditional authorities in controlling and managing natural resources including miombo woodlands. The major factors, which appear to have contributed to rapid deforestation and land degradation, include increases in population pressure, poverty and failure by governments to urgently provide effective policy guidelines on land management and administration regarding the utilisation of forests and natural resources.

 

 

Macroeconomic policies and forestry in Zimbabwe

R.Mabugu¹ and G.Kowero²

¹ Department of Economics, University of Zimbabwe, P O Box MP 167, Mt Pleasant, Harare, Zimbabwe

² Center for International Forestry Research, Regional Office for Eastern and Southern Africa, 73 Harare Drive, Mount Pleasant, Harare, Zimbabwe.

Abstract

This paper discusses the potential impacts of macroeconomic policies on forestry in Zimbabwe. Over the period 1980 – 2001, macroeconomic policies have swung from a centrally controlled economy to a liberalized economy and back to a centrally controlled economy. In general, Zimbabwe’s experience suggests that macroeconomic policies have had negative effects on forestry development. Macroeconomic policies have been implemented in a way that has led to widespread deindustrialization of core manufacturing and to the stagnation of agriculture. In addition tensions have grown in the agricultural sector when implementing land reforms. The lay-offs in the manufacturing sector have led people to seek livelihoods in the informal sector or in agriculture which has led to migration of populations to rural areas. This has placed a heavier burden on the fragile ecosystems and the already scarce natural resources in communal areas. There is therefore need to implement sound macroeconomic policies together with complementary measures in order to address difficulties in the forestry sector.

 

 

Impact of crop producer price changes on quantities of woodland products collected by communal households in Chivi, Zimbabwe

M. Mutamba

Institute of Environmental Studies, University of Zimbabwe, MP 167, Mount Pleasant, Harare. Zimbabwe

Abstract

In Zimbabwe woodlands are an important part of the rural households’ livelihood system as they meet requirements for food, energy, construction materials and cash. This study uses linear programming approaches to understand how households best allocate scarce resources in meeting their requirements for food, energy, construction materials and cash, from woodland resources and agricultural production. Based on these relationships further analysis is done to understand how changes in output prices of different commodities produced by these households will affect quantities of woodland products that are harvested. The data used for this study was mainly collected in a questionnaire survey that covered ten villages in the Romwe community in Chivi District, southern Zimbabwe.

 

 

A goal programming model for planning management of miombo woodlands

E. Guveya and C. Sukume

Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Zimbabwe, P O Box MP167, Mount Pleasant, Harare, Zimbabwe

 

Abstract

This study used a Goal Programming approach to investigate the effects of changes in agricultural policies and labour supply due to deaths in farming households, on use of woodlands under two regimes; namely one where utilization of forest resources was restricted to within sustainable levels and under another where this restriction was relaxed, i.e. an open access situation. The study sites for this work were Mutangi in Chivi district and Mafungautsi in Gokwe district. The Mafungautsi community borders the Mafungautsi State Protected Forest and is relatively better-endowed with woodlands than Mutangi.

The results from the study indicate that households in communal areas are highly differentiated with regards to ability to satisfying family sustenance goals; relatively poor households depend on woodlands for a significant part of their income needs but richer families are more efficient in harvesting woodlands; increase in agricultural product prices or increase in crop yields tend to increase harvesting of woodland products among the better off and reduce woodland harvests by the poorer households; increase in input costs tends to increase reliance on woodlands especially among the poorer households; and loss of a member of a household increases the degree of poverty especially among the relatively poor with the greatest impacts being felt with loss of female members of households.