Ecological Impacts of Land Struggles in Makonde District, Zimbabwe: 1890 to Present

Abstract

Land remains the most important resource in Zimbabwe’s economy. In the Makonde District, Shona people’s lives have been reliant on land from time immemorial. The skewed colonial land policy privileging whites was unstainable as it introduced sharp racial inequalities. Unsustainable too was the haphazard land reform in 2000 that sought to redress colonial inequities but at the same time ushered in widespread environmental degradation, in Makonde specifically and Zimbabwe more generally. The government has dramatically fallen short when it comes to addressing problems arising from land nationalization, land rights, land tenure, scarce energy, resource conservation, and sustainable livelihoods in sparsely distributed agrarian communities like Makonde.