Harvest of timber in Lupane; communities lurching in poverty

By Thembelihle Mhlanga

From time afore independence timber harvesting has been the core activity in Lupane which has the biggest natural forest in Zimbabwe, measuring a total of 286 165 hectares of solid hardwood.

However, communities where harvesting is done are at foulest poverty. The sad situation  is associated with the timber harvesting of the best hardwood timber comprising of Rhodesian Teak(umkusu), rosewood(umtshibi), mohagany(umkamba) and mohagany long tarminalia(umphaphama) from the natural forestry covering a total of  286 165 hactres in the district of Lupane.

The companies that are tendered the harvesting concessions just come and harvest the timber and leave without remitting any royalties and social corporate responsibilities, thus leaving the communities wallowing in poverty, and without any benefit.

The Kusile Rural District Council (KRDC) Chief Executive Officer Mr. Christopher Chuma said that the companies they award concessions to are letting them down as only a few remit even to the authority.

“Hardwood is an expensive type of timber and so we cannot let companies make school benches as this would be a serious waste of the product”.

“Instead, we normally call for the companies to purchase furniture for the schools as a way of social corporate responsibility but they disappoint us as they just fold up operations and leave when their time is expired” he added.

The CEO further explained that as a local authority they are working on modalities that will facilitate the beneficiation of the communities.

“CAMPFIRE is a finely defined devolution strategy as devolution provides for the beneficiation of the locals from their locally available resources and that is why as a local authority, we are working on coming up with strategies for community beneficiation and share schemes” said Chuma.

According to the policy, the community is entitled to 50 percent of proceeds from the resources at their proximity. Unfortunately, the implementation of the policy remains a pipe dream and has not seen the light of day. 

Chief Mabhikwa (Vusumuzi Khumalo) said that timber is a topical issue in Lupane as people are complaining that they are in abject poverty despite the endowment of their land with abundant resources. He alleges  that as traditional leaders, they are never consulted when concessioners are engaged.

“The council officials never consult us when engaging the companies to harvest the timber and when we try to engage the companies they simply tell us that their Memorandum of Agreements are with the council and not with us hence we fail to monitor the exploitation of timber,” said Chief Mabhikwa. 

Chief Mabhikwa went on to lament damage to the roads as the timber harvesters transport the logs to their areas of conversion. He said communities have approached him for the correction of the situation and have also tried to engage the authorities but with no success.

A carpenter at Lupane Business Association, Mr Khulani Ndlovu expressed frustration over the difficulties he and colleagues face to access timber that they use to make furniture as they have to travel a distance of over fifty kilometres to buy the planks and that leads to them running  serious losses due to escalated transport costs. 

The cost of 1 cubic metre of plank is US$450-00 and the carpenters in addition, have to stomach the transport cost which is US$10-00 from Forestry Hill to the main road and then further fork out between US$8 to US$10-00 to Lupane centre where they conduct their business.

“The Forestry Commission and KRDC are shortchanging us, by centralizing the timber logging and sale. If only they could allocate the concession to us so that we can log and convert our timber as this will save us a lot” said Ndlovu.

A villager from Manase where Raise Gate Timbers Company was harvesting Mr Jabulani Sibalo said that as villagers they have been forced to take care of the trees so as to benefit when the timber is harvested, but sadly they get nothing from the proceeds. 

“We remain in poverty as when these trees are logged we get nothing we only remain with a damaged environment. The council deceives us with regards protecting our natural resources for our benefit but practically we are getting nothing from our efforts and it is  so much disappointing”, charged Mr Sibelo.

KRDC has an annual allocation of 4000 cubic metres of timber by the FCZ, translating to more than US$180 000-00 that can be realised by the local authority annually, and this realisation does not reach  the local communities.

In terms of the Communal Lands Forestry Produce Act the local habitats should benefit from the flora resources within their proximity and this is enshrined also in Chapter 14 of the constitution where the locals should benefit from their natural resources.