Zimbabwe is one of the top ten countries facing deforestation in the world.

Tobacco farming also to blame

The most serious threat to what’s left of the country’s forests seems to be the tobacco farming industry, which is (ironically) being hailed as a huge success, following the land reform programme.

The new crop of tobacco farmers, most of whom are still small-scale, insist they cannot yet afford to purchase coal to use in curing their crop.

As a result, they have been cutting down trees to use in the curing process. Furthermore, they mostly target indigenous trees, which burn for longer.

Makoni district in Manicaland  is dominantly a tobacco-farming area, if you visit there you  could see large amounts of indigenous trees piled at almost every farm visited.

In an effort to curb the practice, a statutory instrument was drafted that would require each tobacco farmer to have a personal woodlot on his farm, from which he would collect wood for curing the crop.

But because the policy has not yet been made mandatory, most farmers have evidently chosen to ignore the initiative.

In the meantime, Zimbabwe remains one of the top 10 countries facing deforestation in the world.

 

Trees cut fo firewood

  

There are a number of activities taking place that would help explain why the country continues to lose trees. Because the government has to date still not managed to provide enough electricity to its people, trees continue to be cut to sustain energy needs.

Going around the country’s highways, bundles of firewood (most of it from indigenous trees) can be seen the whole way. The sale of firewood has become big business in Zimbabwe and will continue to be as long as electricity remains a problem.

There are reports that people who recently invaded Save River Conservancy, are seen frequently transporting truck-loads of cut down (indigenous) trees for sale as firewood in Masvingo.