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. To understand both proximate and distal causes of the challenges for the governance of communal forests, the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework and the Network of Adjacent Action Situations (NAAS) framework were adopted. The strength of the IAD framework stems from its systematic theoretical focus on the impact of rules and norms on individual incentives in complex systems while the NAAS facilitates the reconciliation of occurrences outside of a single action situation to characterize the linkages that develop between adjacent action situations. Thus, after endeavoring to understand the contextual factors (proximate causes) in the IAD framework (rules in use, attributes of community, and biophysical attributes) of the resource, the study went a step further to dig deeper and inquired on what occurs outside of the focal action situations to characterize the linkages that develop with the adjacent action situations (distal causes). The objective of taking this step was to evaluate how the dynamics in the focal action situations are shaped by the governance strategies in different arenas thereby influencing governance of communal forests. The thesis sought to answer the following three research questions. Firstly, what are the existing governance structures shaping the dis/incentives market-driven harvesting of NTFPs, respectively conservation of NTFPs on the one hand and governance of NTFPs harvesting, respectively governance of communal forests on the other? Secondly, how are the existing governance structures shaping the dis/incentives in the market-driven harvesting of NTFPs, respectively conservation of NTFPs on the one hand and governance of NTFPs harvesting, respectively governance of communal forests on the other? These two questions are addressed in chapters 4, 5, 6 and 7 which address the proximate causes. Lastly, how are the dynamics in the two interdependent focal action situations (market-driven harvesting of NTFPs, respectively conservation of NTFPs on the one hand and governance of NTFPs harvesting, respectively governance of communal forests on the other) shaped by the governance strategies in other arenas? This question is addressed in chapter 8 which addresses the distal causes. In chapter 4 through a systematic review of legislative policies, the overarching principles that underlie property rights bundles for harvesting of NTFPs from communal lands were examined. Findings show that the inhabitants of communal lands are authorized users for communal forests. The right to regulate internal use patterns, transform forest resources and make improvements on communal land is vested in local authorities thus shifting the responsibility for proactive management of forest resources away from the direct users. In chapter 5, the examination of the degree of policy coherence through summative content analysis revealed that the legislative policies are 77% coherent. However, it is the technical or procedural dimension (instruments and actors) that contributed to the fair level of coherence and there is a bias against the strategic dimension (goals). This highlights a problem of fragmentation across legislation.