Market-driven harvesting of non-timber forest products and the governance of communal forests in the south-east lowveld of Zimbabwe

Despite forests providing a wide range of important products and services for much of Zimbabwe’s population, natural forests are threatened by deforestation. The highest rates of deforestation occur in communal forests. Communal forest resources in Zimbabwe show evidence of increased degradation and signs of a breakdown of local institutions for resources management. These signs of a breakdown of local institutions are coupled with evidence of a lack of any emerging alternative institutions for conservation of forest resources. Promotion of market-driven harvesting of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) was initiated as a deterrent to unsustainable forest use. The basis for promoting market-driven harvesting of NTFPs stemmed from the argument that harvesting NTFPs is more benign and tends to maintain forest cover particularly when compared with timber harvesting and other alternative land uses. It also stemmed from the conservation paradigm which suggests that biodiversity conservation primarily depends not only on the technical and scientific interventions to prohibit or limit use of particular NTFPs, but in providing the right incentives for land-holders to adopt sustainable land uses that do not lead to environment degradation and loss of biodiversity. However, even after promoting market-driven harvesting of NTFPs in Zimbabwe; success cases of governance of communal resources remain isolated, and externally initiated, and heavily subsidized by the outside world. This study sought to evaluate both proximate and distal causes of the challenges in market-driven harvesting of NTFPs as an incentive for the governance of communal forests.