Agroforestry as a Small Landholder’s Tool for Climate Change Resilience and Mitigation in Zimbabwe

Abstract

Zimbabwe’s agro-based economy is dominated by the country’s majority population who live in rural areas and practice smallholder agriculture. While ameliorating the condition of the participant households, current practices of smallholder agriculture have caused challenges to the governance of land, water and forest resources. Massive deforestation has proceeded at an alarmingly high level, in a way that has threatened the long-term viability of smallholder agriculture and the sustainability of natural forest resources. So, smallholder agriculture has driven forest landscape changes that pose inherent environmental challenges including climate change. This chapter blends institutional and landscape approaches to explain how the integration of agroforestry, as a livelihood strategy, can be a tool for climate change resilience and mitigation in Zimbabwe. Drawing on documentary evidence, the chapter concludes that alternative institutional and livelihood initiatives anchored on agroforestry can transform smallholder agriculture and lead to climate change resilience and mitigation.