Residents resist agro-forestry project
December 16, 2012 in Community News
Dzivaresekwa 3 residents in Harare are resisting a reforestation and land
rehabilitation project in the area.
REPORT BY CHRISTOPHER MAHOVE
A social welfare organisation is facing opposition after it signed a 25-year
lease agreement that will result in 10 000 trees being planted on the
60-hectare stretch of land.
Dzikwa Trust Fund, which provides basic education and general welfare to
more than 400 orphans in the area, signed the lease agreement with council
on March 16 this year, to allow it to venture into agro-forestry, where they
would plant various types of trees, including fruit trees.
But residents have expressed their reservations over the project, saying the
land in question forms their maize fields, which they have been tilling for
the past 30 years or more, and have threatened to uproot the trees, should
they ever be planted.
The residents, from both the MDC-T and Zanu PF parties, formed an alliance
against the Dzikwa Trust Fund and its programme director, Seppo Ainamo.
They recently stormed out of a meeting held at the centre to try and resolve
the matter.
The residents, most of whom claimed they depended on the piece of land for
their staple maize, said they would do everything to ensure the project did
not go ahead, even if it meant their children lost the scholarships being
offered by the Trust.
“We don’t need this organisation here. This land has been our livelihood
since we started living here and we can’t afford to lose it now. If Ainamo
wants to approach the minister [Francis Nhema], he should go ahead. Let the
minister come here and we will deal with him,” said one resident, who is
also a member of the Zimbabwe National Army, on condition of anonymity.
Another resident, only identified as Mai Malindima, said Ainamo should
concentrate on assisting vulnerable children and not meddle in land issues.
“We will uproot the trees if they dare plant them against our will. We rely
on that land for survival and we will not allow him to take it away from
us,” she said.
Ainamo, however, was determined that the project would go on, saying it had
the blessings of Environment and Natural Resources minister Francis Nhema
and the Parliament.
“Our lease runs until 2037 and we were invited to do forestry with the full
support of the minister [Nhema] and we know that the parliament is in favour
[of the project]. So we are actually surprised by the outcome of this
meeting,” Ainamo said.
“We had engaged a specialist in Agro-forestry and we planned to introduce
pigeon peas to enrich the land with nitrogen. It will not be the end of my
world if we are stopped from carrying out this project,” he said.
He, however, expressed hope that the trust could make a friendly arrangement
with the involved families, provided “there is no political agitation”.
Initiative can uplift livelihoods: Gwande
Environmentalist, Kudzanayi Gwande, who had been invited to explain the
benefits of the projects to the residents, but could not do so after
residents walked out, said the community was frustrating a very good
project.
“It is a very good project, but must exist together with the community. If
you plant trees such as Mutsangu, which was voted tree of the year, it has
the potential to put up to 200 kilogrammes of compound D fertiliser into the
soil and that would be good for farmers in view of the shortages.
“But the residents became militant before we could start explaining to them
the benefits of the project,” he said.
Gwande said the plantation could also be an income-generating project for
youths and women, who could be trained to venture into timber selling.
He said he was doing his best to support the community, spending more then
US$5 million per year in school fees and projects for disadvantaged
children, adding the project would in the long run, also benefit the same
community.
More families, he said, would benefit from the plantation project than those
who were farming on the piece of land.