Primrose Nyanzero Herald Reporter
Over 330 000 hectares of forest cover is lost annually in Zimbabwe mainly due to the increase in tobacco growers over the period between 2014 and 2017, an official has said.
Speaking at Chitungwiza District Tree Planting Commemorations recently at St Mary’s High School, Forestry Commission official Mr Duncan Chiwala said tobacco growers were not replacing trees.
“Tobacco farmers have recently increased from about 80 000 in 2014 to 100 000 this season and this has a strong negative impact on our forest cover,” said Mr Chiwala.
“We carried out surveys in 2014 and we were shocked to discover that we are losing our forest cover of more than 330 000 hectares per annum and the figure is still rising,” he said.
“This is resulting in most of our landscape being left exposed and causing a lot of negativity. We also found out that we are losing these trees mainly due to a sharp increase of tobacco farmers. They cut down trees for tobacco curing, but are failing to replace them so as to maintain our forest covered.”
Acting District Administrator Mrs Florence Dlamini called for the reclamation of illegal dumpsites.
“Why not replace the illegal dump-sites with fruit trees because they are beneficial to the community in providing food and the environment is left in a clean state?” she said.