POLICY AND POLICY ISSUES IN SUSTAINABLE AFFORESTATION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: A CASE OF ZIMBABWE

  • Isaac Mhaka Institute of Life Long Learning and Development Studies, Chinhoyi University of Technology, Zimbabwe
Keywords: Afforestation, policy, sustainable afforestation and developing countries

Abstract

Despite the growing focus on afforestation as an alternative land use option for economic development, little of note has been achieved in terms of afforestation uptake in developing countries whilst it remains trivialized in the Zimbabwean context. As a result, afforestation has failed to proffer anticipated gains resulting in subsequent low uptake of afforestation as an alternative land use for economic development. The challenges of promoting afforestation has cast the limelight on the issue of afforestation policy. In light of the dynamic challenges sweeping across the global afforestation environment, policy has been hailed as the missing piece of the jigsaw towards the promotion of afforestation uptake. However, despite a plethora of studies on afforestation a close analysis of the focus of many studies conducted to date reveal the existence of a gap in knowledge on the role of policy in the viability of sustainable afforestation as an alternative land use for economic development in Zimbabwe.  Therefore, this study using a qualitative research methodology sought to assess the role of policy in the viability of sustainable afforestation as an alternative land use for economic development in Zimbabwe.  A close analysis of the spectrum of the critical resources for successful afforestation zeros in on three challenges that are critical to optimizing uptake of afforestation. These are, in order of importance, security of land tenure or land rights, access to extension services and access to investment capital. Dealing with these three challenges is pivotal to meeting policy targets for adoption of afforestation as an alternative land use for economic development. Zimbabwe has vast pieces of land with potential for afforestation initiatives which remain underutilised and untapped. The current study highlighted some of the current policy issues that militates against the rate of adoption of afforestation. The study was situated in Mashonaland West, there is need to do further studies on the same issue to have a holistic understanding of the challenges hindering afforestation in Zimbabwe. There is also need on how best these policy related strategies can be adopted to optimise the adoption of afforestation not only Zimbabwe but across developing countries.

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Published
2023-12-30
How to Cite
Mhaka, I. (2023). POLICY AND POLICY ISSUES IN SUSTAINABLE AFFORESTATION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: A CASE OF ZIMBABWE. GPH-International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research, 6(11), 282-309. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10444338