Rezoned for business: how eco-tourism unlocked black farmland in Eastern Zimbabwe

Eco-tourism is undermining black smallholders' entitlement to land in Zimbabwe. In th 1890s, British administrators restrained whites from alienating the whole of the countn by demarcating native reserves. In terms of this limited aim, the policy of native resent, worked. It ensured a land base for black agriculture, particularly for women am children. In the late 1980s, however, Campfire (Communal Areas Managemen Programme for Indigenous Resources) invited the tourism industry to begin operations it the lowland reserves. These firms have claimed land, made money, and relocate smallholders. Based on economic and ecological arguments. Campfire has redefined the black entitlement as merely a claim competing with those of other 'stakeholders’. No guarantees exist for residents and cultivators. Indeed, government and NGOs are fast transforming the lowland reserves into privileged and subsidized investment zones. Held in check for a century, a new kind of settler colonialism is sweeping down from the Highlands.

A symposium paper on how eco-tourism ventures are impacting negatively on the black small-holder farmers in Zimbabwe's rural areas.