Zimbabwe’s problems of land degradation date back to the colonial era when the Rhodesian government created native reserves, the so-called Tribal Trust Lands (TTLs) in 1926. Through the enactment of the Land Apportionment Act of 1930, the country was...
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Zimbabwe’s problems of land degradation date back to the colonial era when the Rhodesian government created native reserves, the so-called Tribal Trust Lands (TTLs) in 1926. Through the enactment of the Land Apportionment Act of 1930, the country was subdivided into European and Native Lands. Since the Act ignored the population disparities of these areas, an environmental crisis was bound to occur in the near future. Furthermore, the Europeans took the best agricultural land while blacks were relegated to the drier and less productive areas. Due to the introduction of the ox-drawn plough, the communal lands were subjected to massive land degradation in the form of deforestation and soil erosion. Although massive land re-distribution has occurred since 2000, land degradation has spread to the newly-resettled areas as human and livestock populations continue to increase in these former white farms. The demand of timber for building purposes as well as wood fuel in these areas, have wors
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