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

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 current crises facing humanity [3, 28].

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

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

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

of organization to create landscapes that serve several functions [23].

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].

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

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

**32**

due to adverse agro-ecological conditions characterized by low annual rainfall and poor soils, thereby having a low carrying capacity [3].

Under these circumstances, the biogeographical conditions in such areas have been worsened leaving the majority of the people who largely depend on agriculture at a vulnerable position where their capacity to adapt to climate change impacts is curtailed [3, 9, 32]. For example, shifts in the micro-climate have been witnessed with low locally induced rainfall during the rainy season than what it used to be 20–30 years ago. The increase in the bare surface due to clearance of the ground cover has increased the levels of soil erosion due to runoff and wind leading to the development of gullies while rivers and water reservoirs have been silted resulting in less fresh water available for domestic consumption and agricultural production in turn. Wetlands that have provided key environmental goods and services have been destroyed to pave way for agriculture due to the rise in the demand for land. Overgrazing has been due to a lack of control of stocking levels to levels of the carrying capacity of the land. With thin topsoils, the water holding capacity of the soil has been reduced, which together with increased runoff when it rains, and low annual rainfall, have eventually reduced the groundwater recharge. The decline in the water table levels also means that there will be less underground water available for extraction during times of crises in the dry season. Reduced water supplies have a direct effect on agricultural production [3]. The decline in agricultural production subsequently reduces available household food, their earnings, and ultimately the quality of life [33]. Environmental goods and services are variable both spatially and temporally across landscapes depending on the state of human-nature relationships [21]. Causes of climate change are global (with developing countries contributing far less), its impact at the local level is critical in such conditions of general environmental degradation. Therefore, it is now imperative to prevent, decrease and scale back the deterioration of landscapes to secure food and water while enhancing climate change resilience and mitigation [3].
