Tedious Manyepo Herald Reporter
Tobacco farmers across the country destroy about 50 000 hectares of forested land to cure the crop every year, a senior Forestry Commission official has said.
In an interview on Friday last week, Forestry Commission operations manager, Mr Stephen Zingwena said the rate at which the country was being deforested has reached alarming levels requiring urgent remedial action. Mr Zingwena said the country was losing 330 000 hectares of forested land annually, with tobacco farming being one of the major drivers of the destruction. I would like to inform the nation that, Zimbabwe is losing about 330 000 hectares of forested land every year.
“One of the major drivers to the sad trend is tobacco farming, which contributes about 15 percent to the destruction. Some of the causes include brick moulding and selective logging amongst other activities,” he said.
He said that his commission had since started to roll-out a counter plan with tobacco farmers to lessen the destruction. The plan, termed Tobacco Wood Energy Programme requires farmers of the crop to establish woodlots of fast growing trees which they would use in future to cure tobacco.
Mr Zingwena said the Forestry Commission has partnered with a private player, Sustainable Aforestation Association to ensure that the plan is effectively implemented without necessarily strangling tobacco farming which has hitherto proved to be one of the key pillars of the country’s economy.