Environmental change in a fragile ecosystem: challenges after land reform in Zimbabwe

As in Mvurwi (see here and here), our discussions began with what the term ‘environment’ means to them. Participants understood the environment as ‘zvinhu zvakatitenderedza’ (surroundings). These included trees, mountains, grasses, wetlands, soil fertility and so on. Interestingly, it was the first time in our discussions that soil fertility was mentioned, perhaps reflecting the dominance of sandy soils in this area. We asked what environmental changes the farmers have noted over time.

Participants noted a lot of environmental changes. “When we arrived in Lonely, there were a lot of wild animals, but today they have been depleted”, one male participant said.  “In the past, those without cattle would use leaf litter to improve their soil fertility. But because trees are now fewer, leaf litter is no longer plentiful as in the past”, a male participant said. “When we arrived here, grasses were tall and plentiful, but now they are less so because of veld fires. Hunters are setting up fires when hunting hares”, a female participant declared.

But not all environmental changes are in one direction. As one female participant noted, “When we arrived here, were relied a lot on trees to build homes and for firewood, leading to cutting down of trees. But today, a lot of people have invested in good houses (brick and tin roof houses), solar systems and gas stoves, thereby reducing the demand for poles and firewood”.

And sometimes environmental changes are perceived differently by men and women, with reduced forest cover making it safer to walk in the area for women:  “In the past, it was scary to walk alone because you couldn’t see very far as forests were thick. But today, you can see very far as trees have been cleared as people open up crop fields, roads and cut firewood”, a female participant declared.

Wetlands and sacred places

The Gutu farm landscape includes extensive sandy soils with wetland areas (vleis/dambos) interspersed. These wetlands in a largely dry landscape are important – for agriculture/gardening, grazing and for domestic water provision. Not surprisingly, they are well protected often through cultural assertions of sacredness.

A female participant from Lonely declared, “When we arrived here, white farmers had fenced sacred places such as wetlands (madekete) where it was believed that there was a njuzu. However, we destroyed those fencing thinking we were punishing the white farmer not knowing that we were punishing ourselves. We know these sacred places, and we encourage our kids not to play there as it’s dangerous. In Lonely we have one mountain which was sacred when we came here. That’s where rain-making ceremonies were held. However, because when we settled in these farms, masabhuku were never installed in our areas. This is where things went wrong. We only have chairpersons. Masabhuku attempted to take control of resettlement farms but they were unsuccessful up to this day. Here, we don’t have chisi for example. In the communal areas, they have chisi.  In communal areas, if you don’t respect sacred places, you will be arrested and charged by the sabhuku. Here, people don’t respect sacred places at all.”

Similarly in Clare farm, a female participant agreed, “In Clare, we still respect sacred places. There is wetland (dekete) near our plot, and we know it’s a sacred place. We do not use black buckets to fetch water from there. The place was fenced when we arrived, but the wire was stolen by people from nearby communal areas. If cattle go into this place, it will sink and disappear for good. My neighbour’s cow once got stuck there, and was later slaughtered. The fence was all stollen by people from the nearby communal areas.”

Declining commons

In both farms, participants observed how common land had declined due to the encroachment of ‘outsiders’, with mostly communal area people blamed. The lack of control was attributed to changing governance arrangements due to a shifting politics in these areas.

A male participant from Lonely noted, “Commons are still there. However, we have problems with people from nearby communal areas. We are now sharing with people from nearby communal areas. These people graze their animals and cut trees in our commons. And you can’t stop them from accessing these places because we don’t have the powers to do so.”

Another male participant commented how the new political leaders were not as effective as ‘traditional’ leaders, such as the chief. “Our problem is that chairman is not as powerful as the sabhuku. The sabhuku is respected because he works with the chief. However, here all resettlement areas do not have chiefs”.  As in many land reform areas, there has been contestation over chieftaincy claims in these areas.  As one participant observed, “Some time ago, Chief Serima claimed that this was his area. But Chief Gutu came and said ‘no’, this is my area and it stretches to Shashe river. So, up to now we do not have a chief in our area.”  This impasse, people reflected, was causing problems in managing the land.

Soil fertility declines

When people arrived in these areas during the land reform occupations, these farms were lightly used, with only limited areas of cultivation, as they were mostly used for extensive cattle production. When people cleared their fields in sandy soil miombo vegetation, the soils had relatively high levels of organic matter due to leaf fall and recycling over many decades. Like in most sandy soils, the fertility levels of mostly ‘virgin’ soils is soon lost through extraction of nutrients through cropping and loss through erosion and leaching. The result is that over 25 years, soil fertility has declined dramatically. This was noted by a number of participants. The decline of fertility is exacerbated by the lack of cash and high expense of inorganic fertilizers and the lack of manure especially due to the mass loss of livestock due to January Disease. Two women commented:

“I remember when we first came here, we used to have very good harvests. When we cleared and opened crop fields, our soils were very fertile. As time goes on, as we continued to cultivate the same area over and over again, our soils have become infertile. It no longer gives us good yields even of maize without the application of manure or fertilizers. Our yields have therefore decreased. Now the yields depend very much on whether or not you have access to financial resources to purchase fertilizers or cattle to provide manure”.

“The problem of soil fertility has been further worsened by the fact that our cattle died due to January Disease. Out of a head of 25 cattle, a household would be left with one head of cattle or none at all. Now it’s difficult to restock because cattle are now too expensive to buy because they are too few now. Cattle are now gold!”

Interpretation of land use and environmental change

The discussion then turned to the satellite maps and the four areas identified (1-3 below and the whole of Clare farm).

Area 1: Increase in crop fields and then decline by 2025 in Lonely. Cultivated areas steadily increased with a discernible decrease in forest area from 2004 to 2009. From 2009 to 2014, there was a decrease in cultivated and an increase in forests, a pattern that has continued, with variations in different places across the two farms. The participants explained that “people are now cultivating on their stands only”, and no longer cultivate outfields. Between 2009 and 2014, participants said that they were cultivating large areas because they needed income to educate their children, and these children were also an important source of labour.  “We managed to educate our children and they went to universities. All these young people are now working in towns, and there are no young people here anymore. As a result, we no longer have labour. We therefore now cultivate in stands only. Nowadays, you will even struggle to get a young man to help you train a young ox for ploughing. They are gone! We are now old and no longer have power as was the case in the past”. Participants also said that at the time they had relatively larger cattle herds before the outbreak of January Disease. These herds were important for the provisioning of manure and draft power, but also affected how the landscape was being used, with heavy grazing in some places. Now this is no longer the case. The reduced intensity of use of the land since 2009 correlates with changes in socio-economic conditions and the demographic stage of households who occupied the land. This has had major implications for land use over the 25 years.

Area 2: Wetland areas decrease and reemerge again in Lonely. Participants noted the disappearance of wetlands in Lonely, and their resurfacing in 2025 because of good rains. They attributed this both to climate change and the practice of cultural norms (chivanhu). “In 2008/9, there was a drought, this is why it dried up, but the wetland has reemerged now thanks to the good rains in the last two seasons,” a male participant explained. Also, a woman observed, “This place is sacred. Some people tried to dig a well there, but bees came from nowhere and stung them…. There is a borehole there, but sometimes it just mysteriously stops functioning sometimes.” Wetlands, as already explained, are vital patches within the landscape, so are well protected, but their appearance/disappearance is regulated by the wider hydrological patterns, including patterns of rainfall as well as the wider management of the catchment.  The decline in cultivation in the outfields and the decline in cattle numbers noted for Area 1 may be having a wider effect on water storage and flows, so affecting wetland areas.

Area 3 (corner Lonely, Maharape area also known ‘jambanja’): One participant noted the pattern of forest decline in this particular landscape patch. This was due to the settlement of a group of people around the elections of 2018: “That area was illegally occupied by people from nearby communal areas around 2018, leading to a decline in forests. However, these people were later evicted last year. These people were settled during elections as part of the campaign. This area is part of our grazing areas”. Political processes can affect who lives where and how the land is used, in this case concentrating deforestation in one area.

Area 4 (The whole of Clare farm): Forest decline before 2019 and increase subsequently in Clare. Changes in forest cover were attributed to changes in protection from outsiders through fencing on private ‘self-contained’ A1 farm plots. Investment in fencing and so the possibility of fencing after around 2019, reflecting increased accumulation from farming in the area, resulted in changes in forest cover, the group explained. “Prior to 2019, we had not fenced our plots. So, people in the neighbouring communal areas would come into our farms and cut firewood and sell at Rufaro AFM church. But now we fenced off our farms, making it difficult for these people to poach firewood in our farms. This explains why we see the increase in forest.”

The discussions in Gutu were very influenced by the particular ecologies of the area. The extensive sandy soils in this miombo landscape meant that soil fertility decline was a major focus for discussion. Lack of labour for managing soils and the decline in livestock numbers due to January Disease also affected soil fertility. Interspersed within this landscape are wetland patches, which people noted as being important both for livestock grazing and irrigated farming. The availability of such patches however varies dramatically over time due both to rainfall and other land use practices. This is a highly fragile environment requiring careful management, but – as in other areas – people complained about lack of effective land control. This was once again the result of political disputes, in this case particularly between different chiefly authorities.

This is the fourth in a blog series on land use and environmental change and was written by Tapiwa Chatikobo, Keen Marozva, Felix Murimbarimba and Ian Scoones. The blog first appeared on Zimbabweland