12. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The KS teak forests of western Zimbabwe provide timber, non-timber products, grazing resources, agricultural land and wildlife. From the inception of forestry in Matabeleland it was realised that individually any of the multiple use components of the forests would give a low economic return in relation to land area. Complementing each other the components provide an entirely different picture and considerably increase the socio-economic potential of the forest reserves. On the other hand it was apparent that there was bound to be conflict in the management of timber, wildlife and a resident forest population that was engaged in livestock and crop production. None of these entities could be managed in isolation. Management plans take this factor into consideration. Compromises are always made without losing sight of the fact that timber and wildlife are of paramount importance.

12.1 Fire

Since 1970, fire suppression efforts have been concentrated on limiting the impact of fires. This is achieved through the establishment of a system allowing rapid detection of and response to fires. Key components of this system include fire towers, radio communications, good access roads, adequate manpower, tools and vehicles. In recent years the system has not worked as effectively as required. An average of 15 000 ha of protected indigenous forests are destroyed by late dry season fires annually (Table 6). This is partly due to inadequate resources needed for effective fire protection measures as annual government grants have been progressively reduced over the years. Radical changes in the approach to fire protection are necessary. There is a limit to the amount of protection that can be achieved with the manpower, finance and equipment resources available. The practice of harrowing and grading all fireguards and traces and fireguard burning are costly and in any case a considerable number of fires result from breakouts from own burning operations. The present road system in the forests is inadequate in terms of layout and ability to carry fast-moving traffic. The days of being able to call on reserves of labour from sawmill compounds, logging teams, forest neighbours and tenant villages in fire emergency are over. At the height of the fire season, standby crews are few and these fire fighters require regular training in order to be effective.

Nowadays, unlike in the past, it is impossible to avoid the starting of fires in protected forests due to increased human activities in them (Table 7). The best alternative would be the calculated reduction or elimination of the herbaceous fuel load before the damaging hot dry season of August–October. It appears that the solution to the reduction of fuel load without use of fire lies in the long advocated use of grazing cattle, complemented by wild animals. While it is difficult to use wildlife for this purpose, at least cattle can be manipulated to reduce fuel load.

The greater the value of the forest the smaller the protected block and patrolling, which should be intensified. Fire protection activities in western Zimbabwe have progressed from the humble yet effective efforts of the 1920s to the comparative sophistication of the present day. However, incidences of fire and the relationship between area damaged each year and the area protected does not vary appreciably. High risk areas have been identified as those adjacent to the Bulawayo-Victoria Falls road and railway line and those adjacent to communal and resettlement areas. Cases of arson and fires started by squatters are an indication of the ever-increasing conflict between the FC and the squatters. Poachers use fires to divert attention during their operations. Under these circumstances large-scale early burning may be justified as inflammable material is eliminated early in the year. Although early burning may be a difficult operation to time and carry out effectively over large areas it can be the cheapest and most certain method of reducing the fire hazard given the limited resources for the current complete protection approach. There are pertinent questions about fire protection that require urgent attention. Protection measures in force date back many years - are they still applicable today? Is it really necessary to harrow or grade so many kilometres of fireguards and fire traces? Why do so many fires result from own burning operations? Most importantly, what is being protected? These questions become more pertinent considering the amount of forest lost through annual fires.

In the KS teak forests fire occurs basically at the forest floor level in fuels ranging from 2 cm to 5 cm of leaf litter to 2 to 3 m of dense grass and heavy regrowth (Calvert, 1986). Fire intensity rises from a low level at the beginning of the dry season to a peak in the hot dry season, falling gradually with the rise in humidity associated with the onset of the rains. The risk of fire is determined at least in part by the fuel load, and increases in proportion to herbaceous production, which is strongly influenced by the previous annual rainfall. Frost plays a critical role in increasing the risk of fire. As a result of its killing effects on vegetation frost results in an increased amount of fuel load and in the depth of fuel, such that the impact of fires occurring after severe frosts is likely to be much more marked than usual.

Logging operations directly increase fire hazard. Logging results in disturbance to the forest floor through dragging of logs. The disturbances result in an increase in grass growth, which significantly increases the risk of fire. In addition the slash that results from log preparation adds to the amount of fuel load on the forest floor. The relatively persistent fuel load response following logging operations could be reduced by adopting fewer site destructive extraction techniques such as felling and loading at stump. Equally important would be to spread out logging slash over the forest floor to avoid fuel load concentration.

Fire damage affects small plant materials low down in the fuel layer, while basal scarring of timber, cambial damage and crown scorch increase in severity and height above ground as the fire season progresses. Repeated burning has a cumulative impact on the woody vegetation. More frequent and severe fires occurring in the later part of the hot dry season will cause the woody community to move more rapidly towards grassland communities. Greater use should be made of the findings of the fire studies, most of which indicate that complete protection results in the highest regeneration and stocking density, and early burning has been found to maintain good regeneration. Complete protection favours the regeneration and establishment of fire tolerant species such as Pterocarpus angolensis, Burke africana and Erythrophleum africanum (Farquhar, 1977; Calvert, 1986). This indicates the need for differential fire management for different vegetation communities and woody species. Understanding these factors and basic fire ecology should be the thrust in protecting protected forests.

Since the introduction of complete fire protection each fire, together with relevant data and information, is recorded including area burnt, reaction time, time spent putting out the fire, weather conditions, etc. (see Appendices 2a and 2b). The information helps to identify high-risk areas and causes of fire and to refine protection strategies. Despite these fire protection activities fire is an annual occurrence in the KS teak forests. Below is a summary of forest areas burnt between the 1989/90 and 1991/92 fire season.

Table 6: Summary of forest area burnt between 1989/90 and 1991/92 (ha)

With regard to the causes of fire, Table 4 provides a breakdown of causes for 167 fires recorded over a four-year period from 1985 to 1989 throughout the protected KS teak forests (Gondo, 1993). Some 60 percent of the fires are associated with forest and neighbouring residents, and these fires account for 75 percent of the total burnt area. During the period poachers caused 28 percent of the fires, neighbours 13 percent, travellers and smokers 13 percent and lightening 4 percent. These data suggest that there is potential for reducing the extent of fire through the establishment of harmonious relations with forest dwellers and forest neighbouring communities. Sometimes several reported fires have unknown causes indicating that investigations were not thorough enough.

Table 7: Causes of fire and corresponding areas burnt within protected indigenous forests over a four-year period (1985/86–1988/89)

(Source: Forestry Commission, 1993)

12.2 Timber exploitation

The high demand for good quality timber has contributed to extensive logging of the protected forest reserves in Zimbabwe. This has resulted in over-exploitation of the commercially important tree species, thus driving the reserves towards secondary forests. In addition there are concerns about poor natural regeneration of the preferred commercial species. Over-exploitation coupled with increasing demand has resulted in forests being dominated by small diameter timber, as evidenced by the reduction in the minimum allowable diameter from 45 cm to 31 cm and sometimes 27 cm between the first and second cutting cycles. The situation is not sustainable in the medium- to long-term future. Alternatives could lie in imposing a moratorium for the heavily affected species in specific forests and charging premium fees for highly preferred ones such as P. angolensis. These alternatives should be built into the existing Timber Harvesting Policy and Timber Harvesting Code of Practice. This could reduce demand and allow recovery of the forests. The current timber royalty fees (stumpage price/m³) are ZW$ 30 000/US$ 120 for all commercial species and all types of logs (Forestry Commission, 2006). It is the contention of the writer that these low prices cause wasteful logging and processing practices of valuable timber resources.

Table 8: Timber concessions operating in protected forests

(Source: Forestry Commission, 2006).

Table 9: Timber cutting cycles by forest in the protected forests

The harvesting of timber and non-timber forest products in the KS teak forests is carried out by the selection system. The system has generally been found to be one of the most difficult forms of silviculture to apply properly in dry tropical forests, as the forest stand dynamics are not yet fully understood. However, if not well executed this type of harvesting practice may result in damages to the remaining growing stock and therefore forest recovery may take a long time.

Under the co-management programmes, forest resources sharing and shared forest management there is a need to up-scale the initiatives to other forests. The slow progress appears to be due to the lack of skilled and experienced personnel in the area of participatory forest management. The current approach of giving this responsibility to conventional foresters is not yielding expected results. In addition to promoting community programmes in the forests under their management, the foresters are expected to plan and implement other management programmes in the forests. Given the large size of most of the forests above 20 000 ha, and large communities around the forests, the tasks become untenable. The foresters are expected to plan and implement participatory management and utilisation of quite a wide range of non-timber forest products that include fuelwood, building materials, wood for household utensils, wood for curio carving, wild fruits and vegetables, medicinal plants, honey and beeswax, game and game products, thatch and broom grass, and grazing. This is no mean task for personnel who have been accustomed to conventional forest management and management approaches that focused on very few forest products. A major drawback with respect to the harvesting of non-timber forest products is a lack of resource inventories in several forests where subsistence harvesting of resources is taking place.

12.3 Wildlife management

Wildlife is one of the most important products of the KS teak forests. It is mainly managed for recreational purposes such as hunting and photographic safaris. An important aspect of its management is determining the characteristics of its population including distribution. A number of game population censuses are conducted annually for this purpose. At best any census method merely produces an index of the density and distribution of wildlife species in the forests. For the KS teak forests the collection and collation of key pieces of information pertaining to wildlife population characteristics has still a long way to go. This can be attributed to lack of qualified long-term serving wildlife ecologists within the FC. Setting conservative hunting quotas should be adopted in order to ensure sustainability.

Currently, the FC operates four hunting safari camps and leases out three. It also runs two photographic camps. In the late 1990s, 12 sites in selected forests were leased out to private photographic safari operators. In 2000, the FC took the initiative of inviting black indigenous Zimbabweans to participate in the eco-tourism industry. This initiative culminated in a policy reform where the FC gives out stakes to local communities and interested black indigenous Zimbabweans in the hunting and photographic safaris in the forests. This policy move was intended to make local people benefit from the conservation objectives of protected forests as well as ensure sustainability of the wildlife resource in forests.

Approximately 40 species of wildlife are resident in the protected forests of western Zimbabwe. Most of these species are of interest to consumptive and non-consumptive safari outfitters and are also used for re-stocking and introduction. Some 25 species of terrestrial and aquatic birds are also found in the forests. Their recreational and sporting value is high too.

12.4 Forest inventories

A number of forests have been inventoried and the status and characteristics of the various resources are known. The basic concept of forest inventories is to provide a constant or regular flow of diagnostic information about the ecological responses of timber and non-timber resources to varying degrees of management prescriptions and exploitation. Sustainable use and management are achieved through the continual process of adjusting management prescriptions and exploitation levels. The exact nature of this adjustment process depends on the experience of resource managers, the effectiveness of harvesting controls, the precision of the diagnostic data collected and the ecological behaviour of the resources. Currently the standard of data collected in the forest inventories is high in terms of information on vegetation types, the diverse forest resources and their patterns of distribution, volume estimates albeit of commercial timber species only, forest areas and forest stand structure and composition. What seems to be lacking is comprehensive information on non-timber forest products given that almost all protected forest reserves are under harvesting pressure from forest-adjacent communities. Availability of the relevant non-timber forest products data and information would assist in planning for utilisation programmes in order to achieve sustainability.

Results of timber volumes for inventories carried out between 1937 and 1975 are shown in Appendix 3. In the late 1980s, there were concerns about the depleting timber resources in the protected KS teak forests. Several forests were inventoried and these results are shown in Appendix 4. The results were taken as the baseline information for the production of the first ever management plans for the protected forests. Other inventories have since been done in Mzolo, Fuller, Mafungabusi, Gwampa and Lake Alice.

12.5 Research activities

The effects of timber over-exploitation, repeated fires, grazing, clearing of vegetation for fuelwood, agriculture and settlements have exacerbated the conversion of forest areas into secondary forests and wooded grasslands. In order to reverse the trend the FC embarked on corrective measures based on sound technical information obtained through research on the various aspects of the indigenous forests (Forestry Commission, 1996). The general objective was to develop methods for the management of protected forests under sustained yield and to protect biodiversity. Specific objectives included:

• Undertaking in-situ and ex-situ gene conservation measures to protect endangered tree species from extinction. This involved the establishment of 11 strict nature reserves (SNRs) in protected forests capturing the genetic variation of the target species and ongoing collection of seed from natural stands and its storage in the Seed Centre at the Forest Research Centre; and phenology studies on target species. SNRs are assessed for ecological and forest biodiversity changes every five years.

• Determining growth models of important indigenous tree species, since successful management and sustainable use of forest biodiversity requires a good understanding of the growth dynamics of individual tree species. This involved the establishment of permanent sample plots (PSPs) complemented by permanent increment plots (PIPs) established within the network of SNRs. By fitting growth data to regression models, diameter increments of four species have been established. The annual diameter increment ranges (mm) are 1.25-2.04; 1.30-2.72; 1.02-2.37 and 0.98-2.24 for B. plurijuga, P. angolensis, G. coleosperma and T. sericea, respectively.

• Understanding the natural dynamics/ecology of indigenous forest ecosystems through studying the natural and artificial regenerative capacities of target species. In a secondary succession, study the natural regeneration of dominant species following rapid disturbance averaging a mean height of 4.5 m and a dbh of 6.1 cm at 12 years. This regeneration was mainly from stump coppice, root suckers and stunted seedlings. In comparison mean height growth rates for the best performer in artificial regeneration plots at two sites were 3.4 m and 2.7 m for B. plurijuga after 16 years and eight years, respectively. The lowest performer for the same variable was A. quanzensis, 0.8 m and 1.6 m over the same number of years. In another experiment the average dbh of artificially regenerated B. plurijuga was 6.8 cm and the average height was 8 m with the range between 4.8 cm and 9.1 cm, 4.6 m and 13.5m for diameters and heights, respectively, after 20 years (Malaya, 1986; Saramaki et al., 1986).

• Determining the effect of prescribed fire on regeneration of indigenous tree species and the degree of die-back and its causes in P. angolensis. The results indicated that annual late dry season fires cause changes to species composition and increase coppice stems of regeneration. In general fire was found to have a depressive effect on the structure of forests. Regular late fires favour species such as Burkea africana and Terminalia sericea, but not Baikiaea plurijuga. Complete protection from fire permits development towards dense Baikiaea woodland. Symptoms of the die-back disease include wilting, yellowing and premature leaf fall, asymmetric dying of the crown and appearance of epicormic shoots on affected sides of the host. Fusarium oxysporum fungus has been blamed for the disease. Fire, drought and frost have been regarded as predisposing factors that are more pronounced in smaller diameter trees. The disease is continuously being monitored in permanent sample plots while means of eliminating it and reducing its impacts are being sought.

12.6 Community participation

In the last decade it has been recognised that the state alone can no longer reduce the rate of forest destruction and degradation. In addition the previously alienated local communities were increasingly contesting restricted access to forest lands and forest products. The FC has negotiated with and engaged forest-adjacent communities in forest resource sharing programmes, community timber concessions, forest protection and monitoring of resource use. In the pilot areas in Mafungabusi, Gwampa and parts of Gwaai protected forests these participatory programmes have reduced cases of poaching, incidences of annual fire and cases of conflict over resource use.

Local communities obtain a wide range of forest products from the protected KS teak forests, which they use for direct household consumption or for sale to generate household incomes. Households tend to be involved in harvesting, collecting, processing, using and selling forest products, resulting in extremely dynamic livelihood systems (Vermeuelen, 1993; Mudekwe, 2006). The protected forests in western Zimbabwe contribute to the increased wellbeing of some households in that they are a valuable source of subsistence goods and materials (firewood, mushrooms, honey, bushmeat, construction poles, thatch and broom grass) that supplement inputs from farming activities. Some forest products act as subsidies to agriculture, for example in the form of leaf mulch, ploughing implements, e.g. yokes and hoe handles. Large numbers of rural and urban people generate a portion of their income from forest products. For some households, forest-based income-generating activities can be a major source of income. Forests provide a reserve of products upon which people can fall back for subsistence and income in times of hardship, for example crop failure or unemployment (Arnold, 1996).