State Forest Management, Society and Environment in Eastern Highlands, Zimbabwe, c.1890-2023

This thesis reconstructs the history of state forest management in the plantation-rich Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe from 1890, when the country was colonised, to 2023, when the government adopted a new forestry policy. It examines how shifting political and economic policies have shaped state forest management, with a particular focus on plantation development. Beginning with the introduction of ‘scientific forestry’ in Southern Rhodesia, the study demonstrated that early efforts at regulation and conservation were resisted not by the local population but by powerful white settler interests who prioritised unregulated exploitation for economic reasons. After decades of contestations between settler interests and state foresters, the enactment of the Forest Act in 1949 marked the end of uncontrolled exploitation by the private market. It inaugurated an era of formalised state control of forest resources that extended into the postcolonial period. Drawing on archival sources, newspapers, and oral interviews, this thesis further explores the postwar expansion of plantation forestry, which culminated in the establishment of the Forestry Commission in 1954, a state parastatal enterprise created to regulate and participate in the production of exotic timber under the Forest Act amendment of 1953. Through this expansion, the state entrenched a highly controlled but exploitative plantation regime that led to land dispossession, labour exploitation and a centralised forest management. While independence in 1980 brought political transformation, it did not dismantle the extractive and oppressive structures embedded in plantation forestry. Instead, patterns of labour exploitation, community marginalisation and restricted access to forest resources persisted and indeed escalated into the postcolonial crisis years. The thesis thus demonstrates that plantation forestry reveals how exotic plantation economies were organised through intensive control and exploitation dynamics rarely found in the management of natural forests. In doing so, it repositions plantations, in addition to natural forests, at the centre of debates on colonial legacies, postcolonial governance, and environmental crises.

Grantor dc:publisher

Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University

Year dc:date.issued

2026

Author dc:creator

• Dhliwayo, Blessing

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Swart, Sandra

Language dc:language.iso

en

Repository record dc:identifier.uri

https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/135740

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholar.sun.ac.za:10019.1/135740