“Our rivers were quickly dying up because of people who were practicing stream bank cultivation. The situation was made worse by the fact that rain is erratic these days, we hardly get enough rain to tide us over to the next season. We have to walk for longer distances to look for water. It’s scary for us especially with the number of strangers who are now in our village looking for gold,” said Anna Phiri.

Anna, 56 lives in a village in Shurugwi, a small town in the Midlands Province in Zimbabwe, located about 350 km south of the capital city Harare. It is rich in gold and other metals making it a haven for gang related violence from gold panners. This is now a problem that is affecting women as they go around looking for firewood and water leaving them vulnerable to attacks.  Historically, it has always been green with lush forests but because of the gold rush, there is a lot of land degradation which affects the scenic outlook of the town. This has started to affect the environment, availability of water and fields are now open pits because gold panners dig around wherever they want to. In some parts, the forests are slowly dying out, making life difficult for women like Anna.

Forests are a vital natural resource, providing oxygen and habitats for both man and animals. Most people in rural settlements depend on forests for their living, it’s their source of food and power. The over dependency on trees has resulted in many countries losing valuable soil cover through over cutting of trees. Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) is a way that some of these forests that are slowly dying out can be saved.

According to the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) is the management and use of forests and forest lands in a way that maintains their biodiversity, productivity and regeneration capacity. The aim being that these forests maintain their vitality and their potential to fulfil relevant ecological, economic and social functions. Many of the world’s forests and woodlands are not being managed sustainably. Many countries lack appropriate forest legislation, regulation and incentives to promote SFM. Many have inadequate funding and human resources for the preparation, implementation and monitoring of forest management plans and lack mechanisms to ensure the participation and involvement of all stakeholders in forest governance, planning and development.

In Zimbabwe a survey was conducted that showed that Mufiri Village, a rural community in Shurugwi was the most hit by the problem of land degradation, gulleys, deforestation and poor water management. This was affecting the communities as their water sources would easily dry up forcing women to travel for longer distances in search of water and firewood. Organisations are coming in to help such communities conserve their forests. Most are women led organisations that have taken it upon themselves to teach women how to get the most out of their forests. This because in patriarchal societies the onus falls on women to take care of the daily needs of their families. Duties like looking for firewood, water and preparing the fields is their forte.

Rebecca Chirenga Director of Women in Communities has one such organisation that helps women sustainably look after their organisations. “We carry out advocacy on how to best manage forests, water and the land. In Mufiri Village we were looking at ways of preserving and conserving natural water bodies, land and forests. We planted natural trees that would grow naturally and these helped restore the land. We reclaimed gulleys, putting in silt traps to protect our dams and stop further erosion on the land,” she said.

Sustainable Forest Management deals with maintenance, conservation and enhancement of ecosystem biodiversity. Ecologically important forest areas need to be protected with the prohibition of forest conversions also being a priority. Zimbabwe Forest Commission Information and Communications Manager Violet Makoto said that as a Commission this was their mandate. She said that sustainable management is all about using and not abusing the forest resources. “In as much as communities derive livelihoods from the forests they should also sustain the same resource so that it benefits the future. We are encouraging tree planting and forest conservation,” she said. She pointed out that the country has gazetted forests in Matabeleland and parts of Midlands. These are protected because as they are sources of some of the major rivers in the country and they have fragile Kalahari sands.  “If these forests are not taken care of it can lead to ecological disasters like silting of water ways which affect the water quality,” she said. There is a lot of tree cutting particularly in peri urban areas to supply the urban areas with an alternative supply of power because of electricity challenges. Woodland management is therefore encouraged in these areas. Where deforestation has taken a toll, indigenous trees have to be planted to naturally regenerate. “Everyone in the country should see the importance of sustainable utilisation of forest resources. It doesn’t mean not utilising but utilising in a sustainable manner that doesn’t mean total destruction of forests but maintaining them for future generations,” Violet reiterated.

By sustainably managing forests the air quality improves because more trees will be capturing air pollutants. When it’s properly administered, soil erosion improves as more trees fix the soil with forest floor. Alford Mufiri, Mufiri Village Headman said that members of his community came together to learn about land and forest management from WICO. The community managed to plant three woodland plots. He encouraged other communities that faced deforestation to come up with project that will save their forests. “If communities approach forestry commissions they can request for trees or get indigenous trees to plant in order to make sure these forests don’t die out,” he said. However, Anna Brazier a Sustainable Development Consultant highlighted that not much is being done to protect the natural resource base which food production depends on. She said that Southern Africa has the oldest soils on the planet and soil is the most vulnerable part of the agric-ecological system. “We also need to manage the whole water catchment. We need to think about how we can replenish rain water in the soil to replenish, by using for instance trees to hold the soil and using better agricultural practices,” she said.

Mining communities are suffering more from erosion gullies because of natural causes and some induced by overgrazing. Gold panners do not cover up pits they dig up looking for gold and this causes untold harm to the environment. Livestock fall into some of these pits when they are in search of grazing land. Communities have come together to cover these gullies by planting trees. For Monica Mukandabvu, planting trees and looking after her environment has becoming a passion. Having seen the environmental destruction that has occurred over the years in her village, man-made and natural she wants to do better.  “We covered up some of these pits and planted trees in places where it had gotten so bad. The gulleys got so bad that even our boreholes were being affected. But this rain season, we have seen how having trees helps our environment,” she said. The outlook of her village has also vastly improved, the flora and fauna is starting to get back to how it was years ago. The air smells cleaner and livestock have more grazing places. Community members take turns looking after the woodlots and have plans to go around planting more trees. Traditional practices where certain trees were not allowed to be cut down and certain fruits were not allowed for one to harvest for resell are being retained. This so as to preserve the environment and ensure no trees became extinct. With Village Headmen involved in such projects communities are embracing and seeing the importance of conservation.

Adopting sustainable forest management like planting trees communities will reduce flooding as trees make a natural barrier to water streams and slow them down. It decreases biodiversity loss by supporting abundant flora and fauna of forests and mitigates climate change through the accumulation of carbon in the forest soil and trees. Laura Mlambo, Monitoring and Evaluation Officer at Environment Africa said that the destruction of woodlands is rampant, especially with new settlements being set up in wetlands. Wetlands are areas which are very important in bio diversity conservation. Eco system bio diversity is dwindling yearly in Zimbabwe and more needs to be done in the area of policing to protect wetlands. “It’s important to protect ecologically important forest areas because these areas are very important in climate change mitigation. These forests are important for the rural people, where they get non timber forest products like honey, harvesting of women, small wildlife, wild fruits,” she said.

For Anna, other women and their families there is hope for their town and their forests. Thy now know that by taking extra care of their environments, they are securing a future for their children and their children’s children.

This story is part of the Social Impact Reporting Initiative (SIRI) project.