The ManicaPost
SEVERAL reasons have been brought forward to explain the fast depletion of timber forests in the Eastern Highlands — a situation that has rendered thousands jobless as downstream companies close shop. Some decades ago, Mutare used to be a vibrant industrial city with timber industries being the mainstay, but the closure of giants like Mutare Board and Paper Mills and viability bottlenecks facing the few firms that are still operational has resulted in economic stagnation.
News of rampant harvesting of timber by players in the sector without any meaningful investment to replant puts a dark cover on the prospects of resuscitating closed timber-related companies like the MBPM.
Addressing members of the Timber Producers’ Federation recently in Mutare, the Minister of Environment, Water and Climate, Cde Saviour Kasukuwere, warned of the fast rate at which timber forests were fast turning into deserts because of the wanton harvesting of trees.
“Manicaland is the hub of the timber industry in the country, but the situation at hand is depressing. We need to up our act and ensure that the industry survives. The forests are no longer there. It’s a painful sight and we have to be more committed to restore it,” he said.
Timber producers must replant trees
Timber business is not an overnight venture whereby you invest today and reap the rewards moments after. It is a long-term venture that pays the investor in the long run because trees need years to grow — on average 20 years.
What those in the timber industry should understand is that the trees they are harvesting today were planted by some people long ago, and some of them have since died.
With that in mind, players in the sector must harvest and at the same time replant because people who will be there after them will also want to harvest timber. It’s a chain that must not be broken by greed and selfishness.
It seems to be a big task now to replant trees on the harvested hectares because some of the players did not take the heed to replant as soon as they harvested the trees.
With the rate at which the trees are being cut down, the timber plantations will soon turn into deserts if the authorities don’t intervene and force these companies to first replant before they are allowed to harvest the trees.
We feel it is within the reach of the Environmental Management Agency to put punitive measures that force players in the timber industry to replant inasmuch as those into mining are forced to rehabilitate areas where they would have carried their mining operations.
Forests need no irrigation because they are what they are because of natural weather conditions. As such, players in the timber industry must not cry foul because, in most cases, once they plant a tree it grows on its own.
We believe that Government must step in and bring order before we have no timber forests to talk of in the Eastern Highlands. The type of business people we now have are pre-occupied with fattening their pockets without worrying about tomorrow.
These are the people who do not want to invest a cent into replanting trees yet they are cutting hectares daily which they do not know the planter. They must be whipped in line and told sustainable ways of doing their business.
In the same vein, the issue of illegal settlers that are also cutting down trees in a rampant manner and causing veld fires along the way must be dealt with decisively.
It is common cause that they are settling in the plantations illegally and thus Government must act and chase them out. If that sort of lawlessness is left to prevail, we will be setting a bad precedence.
Some of the economic challenges we are facing today are of our own making. At times we make bad decisions that haunt our companies.
Let us do our business in a sustainable manner because tomorrow will always come.
