Climate-proofing Rural Communities, Optimising Carbon Stores and Biodiversity Conservation of Indigenous Forests: False Starts, Wrong Turns and Dead Ends?
Keywords:
Indigenous Forests, Carbon Sequestration, Biodiversity Conservation, Rural Communities, Property Rights, ZimbabweAbstract
The primary purpose of the study is to interrogate how indigenous rural forests can be used to climate proof rural communities from the adverse effects of global warming. The secondary objectives are exploring strategies on how to optimise carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation of Zimbabwe’s indigenous rural forests to improve the resilience rural communities. There seems to be a practical knowledge gap in priori studies that focus on the significance of biodiversity conservation, optimising carbon sequestration in indigenous forests and improving resilience of rural communities. An investigation of these issues is important because climate change has a strong potential to stonewall and even retrogress human development in rural communities by precipitating negative externalities related to availability of water resources, agriculture and food production, disaster and risk management, and protection of natural environment. Two structured focus group discussions were utilised to collect qualitative data from purposively chosen participants residing in Muzarabani Rural District. Our main findings demonstrate that assigning property rights of indigenous forests to local communities and reforesting some depleted areas with fast-growing exotic trees may help to enlarge carbon stores and conserve biodiversity. Promoting partnerships that encompass multiple stakeholders such as the government, commercial forest enterprises, natural resources scientists and community leaders is likely to promote enduring long-term benefits for rural communities that live near indigenous forests. Facilitating access to carbon credits and green bonds may help to diversify income streams, promote climate change adaptability and climate proofing in rural areas. The study contributes to the knowledge on how to improve livelihood resilience of rural communities using indigenous forest resources.
