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

Forestry Commission and the communities
There are indications that the level of hostility varies across RMCs and within villages. For
example, at Ndarire and Gababe RMC meetings the researchers were forced to cover the FC
insignia on the car to dissociate them from the organization. Across Batanai RMC, attitudes
towards the organization are very variable; some villages are more violently opposed to the
FC than others. In most villages, the Forestry Protection Unit (FPU) is very unpopular. Some
of these FPU are not from this area. They are responsible for enforcing rules and by laws for
using the resources. The FPU is thought to have unorthodox ways of prosecution. FPU
members are accused of soliciting for sex so they can ignore transgressions. They charge
and apprehend the father for the crimes of their wives or children rather than the perpetrator
of the crime. Local people condemn the use of guns by the Forestry Commission because
the FPU shoot all dogs found in the forest. When the people are angry at the FPUs, they
sometimes set the forest on fire causing further damage for the forest. Some respondents
claim that in general poaching in the forest has increased rather than declined in the
forest. One user explained that sometimes poaching is inevitable because the procedures
for getting permits are so ineffectual and there is too much bureaucracy involved in getting
the permit. Further, the fact that resources are not necessarily found in your RMC means
that users from one can go to another RMC and poach there. Local villagers are still suspicious
of the FC’s intentions. Their actions and programs still put the forest rather than people
first. Thus one local respondent observed, ‘a leopard does not change its spots’ suggesting
that the FC would never change and that even if it did, local stakeholders would find it
difficult to believe that it desires genuine collaboration.
Politicians
Local respondents described politicians, the war veterans and the youth brigade as very
powerful. They were described as the new power elites. One respondent stated that
‘This is their time. Now they are very powerful and their activities and decisions are
unquestioned. We have to consult them over everything we do; the general atmosphere
of fear and hate has been created to divide us.’ Some respondents described this group
of stakeholders as ‘untouchables, the new elites’ while others reflected on the period
immediately after independence in 1980 when this same group had held what was regarded
as ‘absolute power’. Thus in many respects many respondents predicted that this phase
was part of a cycle that will wane like others before it.
1.5 Application of results for the CIFOR social learning project
One of the key areas of intervention for the social learning project is to facilitate effective
collaborative relationships among stakeholders. To achieve this objective, the ACM
research team need to have the following
Some background on the policy and legal framework for joint forestry management
in Zimbabwe;
An appreciation of the range of stakeholders involved in the joint forest management
project;
A clear understanding of how power is configured in the project;
A sense of how dynamic relations between and among stakeholders are in the joint
forestry management project.
On the basis of the data collected in this phase of the work we can state that a clear
framework exists for the successful implementation of joint forest resource management
projects in Zimbabwe. However, in practice such projects rarely reflect the principles
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