People, values, and woodlands: A field report of emergent themes in interdisciplinary research in Zimbabwe

The Value of Trees project, funded by the International Development Research Council of Canada (IDRC), supported the joint efforts of the University of Alberta and the University of Zimbabwe to investigate the economic costs and benefits associated with trees and forests in the small holder farming sector in Zimbabwe. The Value of Trees project provided funding for graduate students and faculty from the two participating universities to carry out studies in the disciplines of forestry, agricultural economics, and sociology in order to provide policy recommendations regarding the role of woodlands in sustainable small holder farming in a context where agricultural production appears to put increasing stress on woodlands. The numerous projects included such topics as the following: the use of fuelwood under conditions of scarcity, tree tenure and local institutions in woodland use and sustainability, gender and wealth as related to tree planting and conservation, time preferences in natural resource consumption, ownership and economic impact of eucalyptus woodlots, cultural and economic values associated with woodlands, and uses and conflicts relating to woodlands across different land categories such as resettlement land and state forests. Many other studies were not funded by, but were associated with Value of Trees. The findings fall within two broad categories. The first set includes those directly related to generating values for different aspects of the woodlands, particularly from the perspectives of rural households. The main finding is that despite being highly valued by local people for both economic and social reasons, woodlands are ranked lower in importance by local farmers than agricultural land. The second set of findings relates to the complexities of the social system of the woodlands. Local institutions, history, resource conflicts, and tenure issues emerge as key to understanding the way that people interact with the woodlands. Finally, local people have valuable knowledge and strategies to offer in the design of sustainable management. The policy implications of these findings for Zimbabwe are that economic incentives could be important in a sustainable woodlands strategy, but that any successful program must incorporate an understanding of the profoundly complex and at times contradictory human dynamics of woodland use and values. © 2000 Kluwer Academic Publishers.