Institutional and Legal Framework for Natural Resource Management. Local LevelNatural Resouce Management Project, Makoni District

摘要

This paper is one of a series dealing with environmental management issues in acommon property regime in eastern Zimbabwe. It offers a basic description of the legal and institutional characteristics of Zimbabwe's communal lands, with a particular focus on Mhezi Ward in Makoni District. A wealth of conflicting legislation inhibits the capacity of residents to manage and exploit local resources in a sustainable manner. This constraint on local efforts is further exacerbated by a range of institutions, both governmental and non-governmental, whose development efforts are neither co-ordinated nor able to accept grass-roots initiatives. The result is a set of poorly articulated policies which bear little relation and consolidate the range of fragmented laws which deal with the environment; the necessity of moving away from criminalization and policing, towards compensation; education and the creation of a more enabling environment; and the need to confront the problem of decentralization in a more imaginative way than has been the case to date.