**1. Introduction**

Zimbabwe's agro-based economy is dominated by the country's majority population (about 70%) who live in rural areas and practice smallholder agriculture [1, 2]. While ameliorating the condition of the participant households as the mainstay of their livelihoods, there is the emergence of challenges in productivity with subsequent effects on production levels which stem from deteriorating environmental conditions. Practices of smallholder agriculture have in the long run caused challenges to the governance of land, water and forest resources. The decline in quality and quantity of these resources has led to the degradation of landscapes which in turn pose constraints on living conditions. These conditions leave people more vulnerable to external influences like climate change impacts as their capacities for climate change resilience and mitigation are compromised. The climate crisis is now more apparent given that climate change impacts are being experienced around the world more often than before, with Zimbabwe having its own experiences of

climate change impacts, especially in the growing season. The growing season is critical because agriculture in Zimbabwe largely relies on rain whose variability is felt by poor households because of their limited capacities to adapt [1, 3–5]. One of the most apparent impacts of climate change is the occurrence of extreme weather conditions which directly affect people's physical living conditions while hitting hard on agricultural production systems through which people eke a living [2–4]. For example, around the Middle Zambezi Biosphere Reserve in Zimbabwe climate change has been felt through water shortages, the transformation of forests, loss of livestock and wildlife, and famine [6]. Analysis of weather patterns over a long time in Zimbabwe has shown that there has been an observable trend of increase in average temperatures, declining mean rainfall per year, shifts in the rain season, increase in the occurrence of droughts and mid-summer dry periods, and the rise in the incidence of severe tropical cyclones [4, 7–9]. Thus, drastic changes in the weather regime especially during the rainy season, affect the production levels which in turn affect livelihoods [1, 10]. Effects of climate change are contingent on each locality such that people from different areas may not necessarily experience the same conditions of climate change impacts [10, 11]. For example, a study in two districts in Zimbabwe showed that the majority of respondents in Makoni associated climate change with the delayed start of the rainy season, and increased frequency of flash floods, while most respondents from Wedza linked climate change to successive dry summers, high temperature ranges across all seasons, and afflictions attacking crops and livestock [11].

This chapter attempts to explain how the integration of agroforestry, as a livelihood strategy, can be a tool for climate change resilience and mitigation in Zimbabwe. Climate change is causing devastating effects at various temporal and spatial scales. Broadly, from the time preceding the industrial era from around 1850–1900 up to now, the average temperature has gone up substantially [12]. In the intervening period from 1850 to 1900 to 2006–2015, this average temperature has gone up by 1.53°C thereby causing global warming [12]. Global warming has the effect of increasing the occurrence, extent and period of high temperature-linked weather patterns on terrestrial ecosystems [12]. For example, droughts have also increased in occurrence and severity [12]. The average rise in temperature over a long period has caused changes in climatic regions including the increase in land under dry conditions thereby negatively affecting the flora and fauna [12]. Climate change can accelerate the deterioration of the land "through increases in rainfall intensity, flooding, drought frequency and severity, heat stress, dry spells, wind, sea-level rise and wave action" [13]. Land degradation has an impact on livelihoods as it limits what human beings can obtain from the natural environment thus increasing their chances of falling into poverty [14]. The goods and services from nature range from food, water, clean air, fuelwood, the ability to increase groundwater, to the capacity to act as a sink for carbon, which all further have socioeconomic implications [14]. Zimbabwe loses approximately US\$382 million per annum due to land degradation and this is equivalent to 6% of its Gross Domestic Product [14].

Climate change resilience here refers to the ability of communities to recover and rise above the effects or losses which they may have incurred due to climate change impacts. I will take climate change mitigation to mean the reduction in the impact of climate change on people's livelihoods and welfare. Interventions to deal with climate change are generally classified into three groups which are "hard solutions, such as engineered infrastructure like levees; soft solutions, including insurance and early warning systems; and nature-based solutions" [15]. Nature-based solutions are "interventions that use ecosystems as part of a broader, societal response to environmental change" [16]. One of the nature-based solutions which enhances

**31**

*Agroforestry as a Small Landholder's Tool for Climate Change Resilience and Mitigation…*

climate change resilience and mitigation especially for vulnerable communities is an ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA). Ecosystem-based adaptation "is a people-centric concept that recognizes ecosystem integrity as critical for human resilience to climate change" [15]. These approaches are based on the recognition of the central role of biodiversity in connecting ecosystems to human needs. So various kinds of ecosystems help enhance the capacity of human beings to withstand the adverse conditions brought in by climate change. For example, "wetlands, forests and mangroves, represent a proven strategy for building resilience to climate change … (as) natural systems (that) can reduce the impact of floods and droughts, decrease hillside erosion and protect lives and property against storm surge and high waves"

Agroforestry here is taken in general to refer to, "the integration of trees and woody shrubs in crop and livestock production systems" [17]. Agroforestry assumes some multifaceted roles in that some trees and woody shrubs constitute part of the agricultural systems as food and cash crops, while their integration in agriculture at the same time will enable the harnessing of their ecosystem roles that are critical in enhancing climate change resilience and mitigation. Thus, the idea that agroforestry is a source of livelihood is not new. However, this chapter is just amplifying the voice that there is a need to ramp up efforts to use agroforestry not only as a source of livelihood but to be integrated into broad measures towards climate change resilience and mitigation. This is more applicable at the small landholder level where climate change impacts are most felt. Households can do agroforestry with limited resources to help themselves while contributing to the greater good of climate change resilience and mitigation through the cumulative positive effects of agroforestry within local communities. The hard and soft solutions are expensive for vulnerable communities to implement, so nature-based solutions to climate change resilience and mitigation become a viable option. Nonetheless, small landholders have to devise ways to cope with the new climatic conditions that are prevailing

The chapter proceeds by blending the institutional and landscape approach as a conceptual basis to analyze the developments in small landholder agriculture in Zimbabwe. This is motivated by the idea that farmers are at the interface of institutional processes that guide their ownership, access and use of natural resources that are found in different landscapes. This will be followed by a treatise of how small landholder agriculture is connected to environmental quality that determines the levels of climate change resilience and mitigation. Next, is the section on climate change resilience and mitigation in Zimbabwe. This will be followed by a detailed justification of agroforestry as a viable strategy to complement other climate change resilience and mitigation measures. Then the discussion will open to reflect on the suggestion of agroforestry as a tool to enhance climate change resilience and mitiga-

tion. Concluding remarks will summarize the content of the book chapter.

Vegetation is important in natural cycles such as water and carbon cycles which all have a bearing on weather in the short term and climate in the long run. Forest resources are a critical component of ecosystems which together with the land constitute landscapes. The issue of "landscape sustainability" has gained prominence from around 2013 when so much attention has been given to the long-term 'health' of various terrestrial ecosystems [18]. Agroforestry as a human-driven initiative fits in the forest resources on agricultural landscapes that help to resuscitate and strengthen ecosystems for a human benefit like climate change resilience

**2. Blending institutional and landscape approaches**

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.97827*

[15]. Agroforestry fits well under nature-based solutions.

now. The adoption of agroforestry is thus a viable option.

#### *Agroforestry as a Small Landholder's Tool for Climate Change Resilience and Mitigation… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.97827*

climate change resilience and mitigation especially for vulnerable communities is an ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA). Ecosystem-based adaptation "is a people-centric concept that recognizes ecosystem integrity as critical for human resilience to climate change" [15]. These approaches are based on the recognition of the central role of biodiversity in connecting ecosystems to human needs. So various kinds of ecosystems help enhance the capacity of human beings to withstand the adverse conditions brought in by climate change. For example, "wetlands, forests and mangroves, represent a proven strategy for building resilience to climate change … (as) natural systems (that) can reduce the impact of floods and droughts, decrease hillside erosion and protect lives and property against storm surge and high waves" [15]. Agroforestry fits well under nature-based solutions.

Agroforestry here is taken in general to refer to, "the integration of trees and woody shrubs in crop and livestock production systems" [17]. Agroforestry assumes some multifaceted roles in that some trees and woody shrubs constitute part of the agricultural systems as food and cash crops, while their integration in agriculture at the same time will enable the harnessing of their ecosystem roles that are critical in enhancing climate change resilience and mitigation. Thus, the idea that agroforestry is a source of livelihood is not new. However, this chapter is just amplifying the voice that there is a need to ramp up efforts to use agroforestry not only as a source of livelihood but to be integrated into broad measures towards climate change resilience and mitigation. This is more applicable at the small landholder level where climate change impacts are most felt. Households can do agroforestry with limited resources to help themselves while contributing to the greater good of climate change resilience and mitigation through the cumulative positive effects of agroforestry within local communities. The hard and soft solutions are expensive for vulnerable communities to implement, so nature-based solutions to climate change resilience and mitigation become a viable option. Nonetheless, small landholders have to devise ways to cope with the new climatic conditions that are prevailing now. The adoption of agroforestry is thus a viable option.

The chapter proceeds by blending the institutional and landscape approach as a conceptual basis to analyze the developments in small landholder agriculture in Zimbabwe. This is motivated by the idea that farmers are at the interface of institutional processes that guide their ownership, access and use of natural resources that are found in different landscapes. This will be followed by a treatise of how small landholder agriculture is connected to environmental quality that determines the levels of climate change resilience and mitigation. Next, is the section on climate change resilience and mitigation in Zimbabwe. This will be followed by a detailed justification of agroforestry as a viable strategy to complement other climate change resilience and mitigation measures. Then the discussion will open to reflect on the suggestion of agroforestry as a tool to enhance climate change resilience and mitigation. Concluding remarks will summarize the content of the book chapter.

## **2. Blending institutional and landscape approaches**

Vegetation is important in natural cycles such as water and carbon cycles which all have a bearing on weather in the short term and climate in the long run. Forest resources are a critical component of ecosystems which together with the land constitute landscapes. The issue of "landscape sustainability" has gained prominence from around 2013 when so much attention has been given to the long-term 'health' of various terrestrial ecosystems [18]. Agroforestry as a human-driven initiative fits in the forest resources on agricultural landscapes that help to resuscitate and strengthen ecosystems for a human benefit like climate change resilience

*Agroforestry - Small Landholder's Tool for Climate Change Resiliency and Mitigation*

afflictions attacking crops and livestock [11].

climate change impacts, especially in the growing season. The growing season is critical because agriculture in Zimbabwe largely relies on rain whose variability is felt by poor households because of their limited capacities to adapt [1, 3–5]. One of the most apparent impacts of climate change is the occurrence of extreme weather conditions which directly affect people's physical living conditions while hitting hard on agricultural production systems through which people eke a living [2–4]. For example, around the Middle Zambezi Biosphere Reserve in Zimbabwe climate change has been felt through water shortages, the transformation of forests, loss of livestock and wildlife, and famine [6]. Analysis of weather patterns over a long time in Zimbabwe has shown that there has been an observable trend of increase in average temperatures, declining mean rainfall per year, shifts in the rain season, increase in the occurrence of droughts and mid-summer dry periods, and the rise in the incidence of severe tropical cyclones [4, 7–9]. Thus, drastic changes in the weather regime especially during the rainy season, affect the production levels which in turn affect livelihoods [1, 10]. Effects of climate change are contingent on each locality such that people from different areas may not necessarily experience the same conditions of climate change impacts [10, 11]. For example, a study in two districts in Zimbabwe showed that the majority of respondents in Makoni associated climate change with the delayed start of the rainy season, and increased frequency of flash floods, while most respondents from Wedza linked climate change to successive dry summers, high temperature ranges across all seasons, and

This chapter attempts to explain how the integration of agroforestry, as a livelihood strategy, can be a tool for climate change resilience and mitigation in Zimbabwe. Climate change is causing devastating effects at various temporal and spatial scales. Broadly, from the time preceding the industrial era from around 1850–1900 up to now, the average temperature has gone up substantially [12]. In the intervening period from 1850 to 1900 to 2006–2015, this average temperature has gone up by 1.53°C thereby causing global warming [12]. Global warming has the effect of increasing the occurrence, extent and period of high temperature-linked weather patterns on terrestrial ecosystems [12]. For example, droughts have also increased in occurrence and severity [12]. The average rise in temperature over a long period has caused changes in climatic regions including the increase in land under dry conditions thereby negatively affecting the flora and fauna [12]. Climate change can accelerate the deterioration of the land "through increases in rainfall intensity, flooding, drought frequency and severity, heat stress, dry spells, wind, sea-level rise and wave action" [13]. Land degradation has an impact on livelihoods as it limits what human beings can obtain from the natural environment thus increasing their chances of falling into poverty [14]. The goods and services from nature range from food, water, clean air, fuelwood, the ability to increase groundwater, to the capacity to act as a sink for carbon, which all further have socioeconomic implications [14]. Zimbabwe loses approximately US\$382 million per annum due to land degradation and this is equivalent to 6% of its Gross Domestic

Climate change resilience here refers to the ability of communities to recover and rise above the effects or losses which they may have incurred due to climate change impacts. I will take climate change mitigation to mean the reduction in the impact of climate change on people's livelihoods and welfare. Interventions to deal with climate change are generally classified into three groups which are "hard solutions, such as engineered infrastructure like levees; soft solutions, including insurance and early warning systems; and nature-based solutions" [15]. Nature-based solutions are "interventions that use ecosystems as part of a broader, societal response to environmental change" [16]. One of the nature-based solutions which enhances

**30**

Product [14].

and mitigation. Human wellbeing depends on these forest resources as well as the ecosystems and landscapes where they are rooted. Thus, human beings virtually rely on landscapes to obtain various ecosystem goods and services [19–21]. Landscapes approaches tend to be holistic in attending to the various dimensions of sustainability through "addressing multiple disciplines, knowledges, and needs that span science-society-policy interfaces and policy sectors and scales" [22]. Three distinct ways through landscape approaches are integrative have been noted. First, a landscape is taken as an interface between society and ecology where these two elements are given a fair chance to analyze their role in determining how the landscapes are constituted [23]. Second, landscape approaches are inclusive of all stakeholders at different levels of organization as their concerns and perceptions are considered for their buy-in and involvement [23]. Third, landscape approaches depend on a dynamic system of management that balances the needs of all the levels of organization to create landscapes that serve several functions [23].

Issues relating to ownership, access and use of natural resources bring in the human-nature dimension and its role in shaping the spatial and temporal outlook of landscapes. Thus, institutions are used to mediate human-nature relations, particularly in determining ownership, access and use of natural resources. Institutions are here regarded as the rules or regulations that are implemented on the access and utilization of natural resources at various levels of organization. The type and extent to which institutions are implemented to interface human-nature relations determine the condition of landscapes. For example, institutions are accepted to have an impact on how human beings utilize land which results in the transformation of landscapes [19, 20]. These components of a socio-ecological system are not mutually exclusive as it has been observed that there is a pitfall of analyzing them as disparate elements [19]. The argument is well put that "the spatial patterns in ecosystems that result from institutions are widely recognized and well analysed (e.g., changes or differences in deforestation patterns under different regulations) but the feedbacks from these patterns back to institutions (and especially, the creation and modification of institutions) are seldom explicitly analysed in studies of landscape ecology and land cover change and hence are poorly understood" [24]. This multifaceted situation needs to be looked at holistically to craft wholesome approaches that take care of the various dynamics that arise from how institutions set in motion by human beings influence ecosystems and the subsequent feedbacks.

Institutional arrangements are important in this chapter to understand that governance determines how natural resources are utilized to meet human demands. Natural resources also have limits through the quantity of goods and level of services which can they avail to support livelihoods depending on how they are managed. Institutions stand in between human beings and natural resources on various landscapes and the two-way interactions between them needs to be understood. Those interactions have a bearing on climate, thus inherently they can either cause or mitigate against climate change. The proposal to consider agroforestry as a tool for climate change resilience and mitigation can be understood in the context of how the relationships between human beings and natural resources are mediated by institutions across various landscapes. There is an assertion that "institutional, policy and governance responses to address land degradation are often reactive and fragmented, and fail to address the ultimate causes of degradation" [25]. This means that measures are put in place when land degradation has already happened, and these efforts are not well coordinated and ultimately not effective in attending to the factors that lead to the deterioration of landscapes. Overall, institutions do matter when considering the fight against climate change across various landscapes. However, there is a need to acknowledge the dynamics of power relations in nature-based solutions to tackling climate change which underpins this idea of institutions [16].

**33**

*Agroforestry as a Small Landholder's Tool for Climate Change Resilience and Mitigation…*

There is a history of policies that promoted white farmers to produce commercial crops such as tobacco by colonial governments in southern Africa whose countries fall within the areas dominated by miombo woodlands [26]. Thus, there has been a trend of damage to indigenous forests and their subsequent replacement with exotic timber and fruit trees as part of forestry, reforestation or agriculture in general. Deforestation is a major environmental challenge in Zimbabwe. People cut down trees mainly for household energy needs, construction purposes, clearing land for crop production, and overgrazing. Most recently trees have been felled to provide energy for treating flue-cured tobacco mostly in Mashonaland East, Mashonaland Central, and Mashonaland West Provinces of the country. Production of tobacco contributes to around 5% of deforestation in Africa, but unfortunately, there is a gap in considering the negative effects to the environment which come back to affect people's livelihoods [26]. Biodiversity loss is a crisis that is facing humankind today in conjunction with the climate crisis [27]. About a million species face the risk of being lost forever due to damage to ecosystems which will further worsen the

Globally, it was forecast that environmental change would be mainly pushed by the rise in population and its subsequent increased food needs [29]. Thus, population growth has caused a rise in demand for land under crop and livestock production subsequently putting pressure on land, water and forest resources to sustain livelihoods mainly in the rural areas. It has also been concluded that land degradation is a great challenge worldwide which is inherently associated with a decline in biodiversity pushed by an increase in area under arable and livestock production, poor agricultural and forestry management systems, shifting climatic regime, urban sprawl, urban and mining development [3]. In Zimbabwe, incessant and prolonged power outages from the country's electricity utility since the late 1990s have increased demand for firewood as an affordable alternative source of energy. Since then, the general transport of firewood (due to strong rural–urban linkages) and its trade from the rural areas have added to the toll of deforestation. The challenge of deforestation has been exacerbated by the lack of corresponding efforts in reforestation. So, even though vegetation is a renewable natural resource, the rate at which regeneration of trees and other components of the ecosystem that survive after the damage is lower than the rate of the loss is incurred [30]. Massive biodiversity loss follows. Indigenous forests also consist of woody tree species that are slow-growing which makes it difficult to restore forests to their climax levels within a generation. Historically, society has been able to contain short-term changes within a human generation climatic conditions but now climate change is enduring and happening at a faster rate

Crop and livestock production systems with less or without corresponding conservation in the rural areas have thus had a net effect of transforming landscapes in a way that contributes to environmental damage and subsequent degradation. This has compromised what the environment can give back to the people in terms of environmental goods and services which keeps driving productivity down to precarious levels that threaten livelihoods [3]. The effect of deforestation on landscapes is critical since the majority of the Zimbabwean population is rural-based and dependent on smallholder agriculture. This burden to the environment is also coupled with the colonial legacy of the displacement from fertile land and the concentration of the population into marginal land in what was called native reserves. These areas with marginal land have already been areas of low agricultural potential

**3. Smallholder agriculture and its impact on Forest resources** 

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.97827*

current crises facing humanity [3, 28].

than what they can do to cope [1, 31].

**in Zimbabwe**
