Gathered produce in Zimbabwe's communal areas changing resource availability and use

Abstract

This article analyses the relationship between environmental change and the availability and use of gathered produce in one of Zimbabwe's deforested communal areas. Based on a series of interviews with households of different socio‐economic status, it investigates the shifting contribution to rural livelihoods and diet made by gathered products such as fruit, nuts, leaf vegetables, mushrooms, insects, rodents and leaf litter. Species favouring arable and disturbed environments have become more abundant, whereas those flourishing in woodlands have diminished. There is no simple relationship between changing resource availability and shifting patterns of consumption and sale of gathered produce: socio‐economic changes and changing preferences are important influences on consumption, whereas the emergence of markets for gathered resources is related to processes of specialization and exchange rather than physical scarcity. There has been an overall decrease in the diversity of gathered produce eaten, with increased dependence on ‘weeds’ and ‘pests’ gathered from privately used land (homeyards, gardens and fields). At the same time, agricultural production has become more dependent on fertility inputs from common property woodland. Poorer households are more dependent on consumption, sale and other use of woodland and other gathered produce than are wealthy households.