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Reversing climate change by restoring nature in Zimbabwe

Water from borehole wells is pumped into storage tanks for people, or into watering troughs for cattle.

October 16, 2024

By Janice Biehn

Due to climate change, biodiversity loss and land degradation, people in the Nemakonde area of Zimbabwe are facing many challenges. There is not enough food to eat or wood for fuel. They are susceptible to weather events and natural disasters, degradation of ecosystems, internal displacement and emigration.

PWRDF partner TSURO Trust is working to improve conditions for community members. A project funded by the Canadian Foodgrains Bank and the Government of Canada, and supported by PWRDF, is adopting gender-responsive, nature-based solutions to improve biodiversity and strengthen climate resilient livelihoods.

The Nature+ project began in October 2023 and will run until March 31, 2026, directly affecting more than 1,700 people, and indirectly affecting twice as many. It will protect, manage and restore ecosystems, as well as address societal challenges such as food security. It will enhance the wellbeing of communities and restore landscapes through three inter-linked elements.

Climate

The project will enable the community to absorb climate shocks, such as droughts and floods, by scaling up four main nature-based solutions that will be locally led and adapted:

Heifers are being distributed to provide farmers with an opportunity improve their family's nutrition and income
Heifers are being distributed to provide farmers with an opportunity improve their family’s nutrition and income
  • Conservation agriculture techniques such as minimizing soil disturbance, maximizing soil cover, and maximizing crop diversity.
  • Assisted natural regeneration and enrichment planting such as incorporating fruit trees, indigenous trees, and fodder crops into farmers’ fields and household areas in conjunction with wider landscape rehabilitation through tree planting and natural restoration processes.
  • Improved water management including use of structures to control soil erosion, farm level water harvest technologies and water conveyance systems. This includes the construction of four solar-powered boreholes. Solar panels are mounted above a borehole well to provide the power needed for a pump to extract water. A narrow shaft drilled approximately 60-80 metres into the water table by a rig, and the water flows from a raised tank of 10,000 litres into pipes that supply water to households for domestic use and livestock watering.
  • Improved livestock and range management such as community planned grazing, improved fodder crops and improved crop-livestock systems. This includes distribution of heifers to farmers.

Biodiversity

A biodiverse landscape enables community members to build more resilient livelihoods.

  • Use of nature-based solutions in agricultural production and improved marketing to enable higher income earnings.
  • New or improved agro-ecosystem activities including non-timber forest products such as fruit, nuts and honey; and production and marketing of fuel-efficient stoves to foster resilient livelihoods. Two initiatives include stocked fish ponds and mushroom hubs.
Inside a mushroom house.
Inside a mushroom house.
Tilapia are farmed in the newly constructed ponds.
Tilapia are farmed in the newly constructed ponds.

A Mushroom Hub is a demonstration site where farmers are learning how to grow mushrooms. The mushroom hub will enable individual households to start their own fungi culture project. They start by building a darkened room measuring 5 feet by 5 feet, with a spawning area of 5 feet by 3 feet that allows the light to come through. The farmers will then receive a 30 kg start-up package of spawn, cement and black plastic to build a hub at home.

A fish pond is a controlled pond, small artificial lake, or retention basin that is stocked with young tilapia that are farmed and harvested. The project will build 25 ponds which can each hold 1,000 young fish.

Inclusion

The project will empower women and other vulnerable groups to participate and lead in community and landscape level governance systems.

  • Training and support in literacy, leadership, advocacy and policy change.
  • Support for inclusive and participatory decision-making bodies within the community, such as natural resource management committees and livelihood-based community groups (e.g. savings and loans groups and cooperatives).

Most community members rely on agriculture for their livelihoods. The Nature+ Project landscape approach to improve food systems seeks to meet the needs of the land, its inhabitants and the institutions that operate there. This project will scale up nature-based solutions, enhance climate-resilient livelihoods and enable women and other vulnerable people to adapt to climate change.

Full landscape restoration and transformed livelihoods will not happen in a few short years, but this initial phase of the Nature+ Project will lay a strong foundation for longer term change. Over time, this nature-positive approach will contribute to restoring biodiversity, building climate-resilient economies and enhancing human wellbeing including food security and gender equality for the people living in the Nemakonde landscape.

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For media requests, please email Communications and Marketing Coordinator Janice Biehn at [email protected].

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