Impacts of land reform migration on rural livelihoods and forest resources management in Nyabamba A1 resettlement area, Chimanimani, Zimbabwe

Abstract

In Zimbabwe, the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) initiated in 2000, brought along increased access to and better distribution of the benefits from natural resources such as forests, land, water, wildlife and minerals.This thesis deals with the relationship between A1 resettled farmers’ livelihoods and forest resources management in Nyabamba A1 resettlement area, in Chimanimani, Eastern Zimbabwe.In the beginning of the year 2000, the Ministry of Environment and Tourism in Zimbabwe developed an Integrated Conservation Plan (ICP) for the FTLRP. The aim of the ICP was to address environmental concerns and come up with alternative land uses and options that would enable the FTLRP to be environmentally sustainable. The results of this study showed that environmental policy is incorporated to some extent into the rhetoric of land reform policies, but implementation has proved to be weak.

The major finding was that there is high dependency of A1 farmers’ livelihoods on the forest resources in Nyabamba A1 resettlement scheme by characterizing their forest-based activities. High degrees of deforestation were attributed to uncontrolled timber extraction, preparation and expansion of agricultural areas and construction of dwellings, uncontrolled cutting down of trees for energy and for commercial purposes and clearing of trees during extraction of mineral resources. The study unravelled that these new communities wereoperating in the absence of policies that ensured integrated land use planning and conservation measures for sustainable natural resources management. Thesefindings showed the extent to which human-well-being has been influenced by the reciprocal relationship between rural livelihoods and forest resources within an A1 resettlement area and how this relationship could ensure the conservation of the resources in future.

The study results also showed that resettled farmers’ view of the nature of the rules and the institutions involved in forest management were fairly consistent but these have not been very effective as there are no proper enforcement mechanisms. However, a regulated harvest of trees could enhance the livelihoods of the households as the newly resettled farmers were generally receptive to conservation measures, especially in cases where sound environmental management has tangible economic benefits, such as the establishment of wattle woodlots.

Based upon the need to understand human and social interaction of A1 resettled farmers’ experiences and perspectives within their natural settings the study adopted the phenomenology theoretical perspective. In order to investigate the central questions of the research, the study adopted a multi-method approach using both the qualitative and quantitative methods of inquiry. The methods captured the myriad of activities and the complexities of livelihoods and forest management in Nyabamba A1 resettlement area. The combination of these research methods provided an investigative process entailing that the researcher gradually makes sense of social phenomena by contrasting, comparing, replicating, cataloguing and classifying the object of study.

In line with this, the thesis provides some suggestions for management strategies for the sustainable use and conservation of forest and improvement of the natural resources based livelihoods of Nyabamba A1 resettled farmers. One of the suggestions is that there is need for a shift of making the inclusion of environmental aspects into land reform processes as a response to perceived environmental degradation, rather from the planning stage the land reform processes should be viewed as opportunities for sustainable use of natural resources.Whilst the study found out that the situation was not as drastic as was the case in communal areas, there is great need to reduce direct dependency of the resettled farmers’ livelihoods on natural resources and the improvement of natural resources based livelihoods in order to avoid the system sliding in to undesirable domains which have resulted in deforestation. The study also asserts that sustainable forest management can be enhanced through improved local institutions and improved capacity for forest management.