Soil erosion and conservation in Zimbabwe: political economy and the environment

This thesis concerns soil erosion and conservation in Zimbabwe. It is framed in the light of the contemporary heightened concern for the environment generally in Africa and the recent publication of the National Conservation Strategy for Zimbabwe (1987). Soil erosion is an archetypal interdisciplinary problem. This thesis complements and extends understanding of soil erosion and conservation in Zimbabwe via a methodological approach and a scale of analysis which have been under-represented in the literature to date. The research adopts a pluralist, regional political ecology approach (after Blaikie and Brookfield 1987) to soil erosion and conservation in Svosve communal area, combining political-economic understanding with case study analysis of changing social-environmental relationships. Plural problem definitions are constructed through interview and survey techniques, historical analysiso f archival sourcesa nd oral testimonies,a ssessmenot f contemporary policy and planning documents and via sequential air photograph analysis. The researchc hallengesa spectso f the colonial conservationislti terature to date for southernA frica andn ational level modelling of human-environmenrte lationshipsi n Zimbabwe. It presentsa quantitativea ssessmenotf the changei n symptomso f deterioration and in the nature and extent of soil erosion for the case study area. It operationalisesth e concepto f multiple problem definitions with implications for the contemporary model for conservation extension and for improving the role of local development institutions.