Where the power lies: multiple stakeholder politics over natural ...

in Mafungautsi. We found that some local forestry officials were unwilling to have their
opinions documented or cited. Some officials were only willing to discuss their views
after assurances of confidentiality were given. Some researchers also declined to comment
on the project for fear that such disclosures would compromise their working relations
with the state which still controlls the forest.
Policy and legal context of Mafungautsi Joint Forest Management Project
There is much interest and experience in management on the basis of multiple stakeholder
groups in Zimbabwe. Over most of the key resources like water and wildlife the government
is developing management approaches that include other stakeholders, especially local
communities. However, experiences with CAMPFIRE have demonstrated that the intended
inclusion of local people in the management of wildlife has not been as complete as would
be ideal. Instead, the rural district councils maintain their grasp on power even though the
legislation clearly intended for that power to be passed down further (Murphree 1990;
1991). In many analyses, local people have thus remained powerless in spite of the rhetoric
to the contrary. In the water sector, reforms have taken a similar path. The reconfiguration
of power away from white farmers to communities has not yet been seen; instead,
communities continue to underwrite white farmer programs for water because they really
have no power to veto anything that the white farmers want (Sithole 2000). Thus far,
Zimbabwe has much experience in multisples takeholder groups but has yet to have a real
success story. The pilot case of joint management of state forests with other stakeholders
has taken ten years and still no concrete suggestions or policies have been developed for
managing similar forests or indeed to reduce the conflicts among the stakeholders involved.
There is an adequate institutional framework for the integration of stakeholders at the
district level. But this framework tends to be discounted and bypassed as most ministries
and government departments ignore their existence. This is one reason for the conflict
between them and ministries or departments because the district councils feel sidelined
as often no organisations wants to work with their structures. Some local government
structures at village level are often deemed illegitimate.
Mafungautsi State Forest Reserve is found in Gokwe District, in Mashonaland West Province.
The forest is about 82 000 ha in extent and was reserved in 1954. Most of the settlement
is at the forest margin though communities use a wide variety of products and services
from the forests. Some of the use is termed ‘illegal and poaching’ by the forestry
authorities. In general, communities are allowed subsistence use of the forests but need
permits to collect certain products. There is much literature on local use of forestry in
Mafungautsi and detailed accounts and analyses of the relationships between the forestry
authorities and the communities have been made over the years (Bradley and McNamara
1993; Matzke 1993; Vermuelen 1994; Matose 1994, 1997; Nhira 1995; Nemarundwe et al
1999; Roper and Maramba 2000). The relationship between the forestry authority and
the local people is best described as being largely characterised by suspicion, years of
conflict and there is sometimes violent confrontation (Matose 1994, 1997).
To understand what type of arrangements forests in Zimbabwe are managed under, we
applied the concept of ‘tenurial niche’ developed by John Bruce of the University of Wisconsin
Land Tenure Center (Bruce 1986) to define finer categories of forest resources in relation to
the stakeholder composition, and came up with the list presented in Box 1.1 The concept of
social forest describes property relationships, not space or physical characteristics.
Mafungautsi State Forest is one of a number of forests managed by the Forestry
Commission. In recent years, literature reviewing the project has suggested that the
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