Conservation and Expulsion: The Sikumi Forest Reserve in Zimbabwe 1

• In Event: Extractivism, Conservation, Science and Justice: Workshopping Emerging Approaches in Decolonial Science

Abstract

It is an overstatement to say there is a war for conservation or that conservation-scapes are deadly landscapes in the Zimbabwean forestry context. Undeniable, however, is a case of post independence resource-based or green violence against society which follows a tradition of violent expulsions since the forest reservation era. Today’s violence is a product of structural effects of colonial forest regulations and policies, and scientific discourses on sustainable yield forest management inherited with minor changes by the post independence Forestry Commission. Using the case of Sikumi Forest Reserve in Zimbabwe, we explore how communities living adjacent the forest continue to be denied resource access on the basis of scientific conservation and how violence is unfolding. We discuss emerging forms of green violence and whether conservation in this context necessarily requires the expulsion of people. The question arises as to what forms a decolonial conservation science might take.

Authors

• Tafadzwa Mushonga, University of Cape Town

• Frank Matose, University of Cape Town