POLICE, in conjunction with the Environmental Management Agency (EMA) and the Zimbabwe Prison Service, yesterday launched a blitz on illegal firewood vendors in Mbare, Harare, and confiscated an estimated 300 tonnes of firewood from indigenous trees.
Report Wonai Masvingise
The wood is valued at several thousands of dollars.
Christopher Mushava, principal officer of Environmental Impact Assessment and Ecosystems Protection, said the illegal wood traders would be fined. Wood poaching, he said, was a level three crime attracting $20.
Most of the wood was taken from firewood traders operating as Pamuzinda Co-operative, who watched helplessly as prisoners loaded the firewood onto prison trucks.
The Co-operative chairperson Tendai Manyasha said he was angry with the operation which he said had shattered the lives of 21 members and their families.
“Over 60 people were depending on this business, about 20 of them being youths. Some were elderly people as well,” Manyasha said.
“This market has been here for the past 10 years and we lived off it. I have four children of my own and altogether I have 12 dependents. I was fending for them from the sale of firewood.”
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He added: “Some of these children running around here have nowhere to go now. This is their home. Some of them used to stay at Mbare Musika, but they were now able to make an honest living selling firewood here. Now some of them might go back to being thieves.”
Manyasha said his co-operative had no wish to be on the wrong side of the law since they had been waiting for permits from the Foresty Commission for the many years that they have been operating.
“We don’t know why they have come to raid us today because we did not wish to operate illegally. We were told to wait for permits by the Forestry Commission, but those have been long in coming and we had to feed our families in the meantime,” he said.
But Mushava said the illegal business had to be shut down as it was contributing to desertification, which in turn aggravated climate change.
“At this rate, we are running towards becoming a desert. We will end up having no trees and this worsens the issue of climate change,” Mushava said.
“This is what necessitated this kind of raid. It takes between 130 and 200 years to grow an indigenous tree to the size you are seeing here, so you can imagine the kind of damage being done to the environment.”
Firewood is the source of energy for over two billion people worldwide and about 90% of people in Zimbabwe.
Environment and Natural Resources minister Francis Nhema is on record saying Zimbabwe was on the brink of desertification due to deforestation, estimated to be taking place at an alarming rate of around 330 000 hectares of land per year.
