Zimbabwe's forests are worth billions — but only if we protect them right
Miombo woodland covers a large share of Zimbabwe and stores carbon at national scale. Turning that into revenue depends less on the forest than on who holds it, who measures it and who benefits.
By Terra Verde
Zimbabwe's miombo woodland is one of the most extensive dry-forest systems in southern Africa. It stores carbon in the canopy, in the root systems and, crucially, in the soil — and it supports the livelihoods of rural communities who have used it for generations.
That combination is exactly what a REDD+ project is designed to reward. It is also exactly why so many projects in the region have failed to materialise.
The drivers are local, not abstract
The pressure on Zimbabwean woodland is rarely described honestly. It is charcoal production for urban energy, tobacco curing, agricultural expansion and fuelwood demand — all of them economic necessities for the households involved.
A project that assumes deforestation will stop because carbon revenue exists, without addressing why the trees were cut, is a project that will not survive its first verification cycle.
Four things a miombo project needs
Tenure that can be evidenced. Who owns the carbon right, for how long, and under what instrument? Community trusts, conservancies and leaseholders all arrive with different legal positions, and the answer determines whether a project can be registered at all.
A defensible baseline. Historic land-cover change, projected without the project, at a resolution that reflects reality on the ground. Overstated baselines are the fastest route to losing a credit buyer.
A monitoring system that reaches the ground. Remote sensing gives scale; field plots give truth. Miombo's open canopy and seasonal variability punish anyone who relies on satellite data alone.
Benefit-sharing agreed before the first sale. Communities are not a consultation step. If the revenue split is unclear at registration, it will be contested at issuance.
What this means practically
Carbon revenue should be treated as one income stream within a wider landscape plan — not a substitute for the charcoal trade that a project is trying to displace. The credible projects pair carbon finance with alternative livelihoods, fire management and, often, water and agricultural interventions.
That is slower work than selling a forest. It is also the only version of this that lasts long enough to be verified twice.
We work with landowners, conservancies and community trusts across Zimbabwe to assess carbon potential honestly, and to build projects that can be defended at validation and at issuance.