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Contestations and struggles in the use and protection of wetland ecosystems in communal areas of Zimbabwe: a case study of Intunjambili wetland in Matobo district

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Abstract

Wetland degradation and loss is continuing at an alarming rate in communal areas of Zimbabwe. Although poorly mapped at national scale, communal wetlands have been over utilized and undermanaged posing threats to the existence of these valuable ecosystems. The article examines the contestations and struggles in the use and protection of wetland ecosystems in communal areas of Zimbabwe, with special focus on Intunjambili wetland located in Matobo district. To solicit data, the study adopted a household questionnaire survey, semi-structured interviews with key informants and field observations. The Ostrom theory (1990) was used as a lens to explore how contestations and struggles at wetland scale undermine wise use, as guided by the Ramsar framework. The study findings show that the majority of the households (90%) revealed that conflicts related to wetland use are experienced in the area. Chi-square test results show that there is an association between household head’s socio-demographic characteristics (p < 0.05) and knowledge on conflicts in use and protection of communal wetlands. About 70% households highlighted that crop cultivation is a major threat to wetland protection as it is associated with excessive water abstraction that depletes ground water and disturbs the hydrology. The study recommends that profits obtained from the sale of horticultural products be reinvested to maintain the wetland, for example, buying fence to protect the wetland core area since it has been destroyed.

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Data availability

(data transparency) The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. All data produced from this study are provided in this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, Environmental Sustainability and Resilience Building, Midlands State University, Gweru, Zimbabwe

    Thomas Marambanyika & Tatenda Musasa

  2. Department of Earth Sciences, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa

    Tatenda Musasa

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  1. Thomas Marambanyika
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  2. Tatenda Musasa
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Contributions

Conceptualization: TM and TU; methodology: TM and TU; Software: TU; validation: TM and TU.; formal analysis: TM and TU investigation, TM and TU, data curation, TU; writing—original draft preparation, TU and TM.; writing—review and editing, TM and TU visualization, TM. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Tatenda Musasa.

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Competing interests

The authors declare that this is their own work and has not been sent for publication elsewhere. The authors also declare no conflict of interests in this research.

Ethical approval

Ethical issues were an important aspect of this research since they ensured that confidentiality and consent were upheld. Ethical clearance was sought from the Midlands State University to grant permission to carry out the survey. Permission to enter the study areas was sought from the Rural District Authority through a cover letter with the detailed aim and objectives of the study.

Consent to participate

All households included in this study gave written informed consent to participate in this research. If the household head was not available, the eldest family member capable of making decisions participated in the survey.

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All households provided informed consent to publish the data contained within this article.

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Marambanyika, T., Musasa, T. Contestations and struggles in the use and protection of wetland ecosystems in communal areas of Zimbabwe: a case study of Intunjambili wetland in Matobo district. Wetlands Ecol Manage 31, 611–627 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11273-023-09937-0

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