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Forests Without Benefits, Lupane Residents’ Call for Timber Value Addition

Lupane carpenters bemoan the high cost of timber despite being custodians of the sacred forests. Image by The Citizen Bulletin


BY CALVIN MANIKA | @The_CBNews | This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | OCT 4, 2021

Rich forests in Lupane have not translated into better living standards for locals, and now they are demanding a change to that.


LUPANE (The Citizen Bulletin) — Makesure Ncube, a carpenter at Lupane Business Association, a trust that has provided a place for local carpenters to work as small and medium enterprises (SMEs), says timber is very expensive to locals despite them being the custodians of the sacred forests.

This is coming when marginalised communities are witnessing a false start to the devolution clause in the country’s constitution seven years since its adoption. Like many Lupane residents, Ncube suggests that selling raw timber by the Forest Commission and Council is robbing Lupane of the benefits of value addition and beneficiation, which in the process would bring skills, timber technology, jobs, revenue retention, and development.


“Timber should be sold at affordable prices to locals; currently, it is US$38 per cubic litre and US$460 per cubic litre of sawn timber. It is beyond our reach. We have many concerns because many truckloads are going out of Lupane, but we haven’t seen benefits.”
Makesure Ncube, the carpenter


Lupane, the capital of Matabeleland North, is endowed with forests of timber. The most common timber trees are Mukwa, Rosewood, Teak and Mahogany, which produce export products. Despite the harvest of wood and its sales locally and internationally, many Lupane residents and villagers have remained unemployed and poor for years.  Few Lupane residents have been involved in carpentry; a venture, if supported, can help many people in the growth point and surrounding areas.

The newly appointed Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Kusile Rural District Council (KRDC), Wellington Mthembo, says that the issue is pertinent, but he needs to review the records.

“I am new in the office, just three weeks, I need to go and check the records as for now I am occupied by the impending visit of the President,” says Mthembo.

Lupane Business Association Trust has an accommodation capacity of 3 people per each of its nine sheds. For years the association has been hailed as a success story of the small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

In 2017, the former KRDC CEO Christopher Chuma noted the need for Lupane to process timber independently but cited the economic situation affecting the industry. Chuma mentioned that the timber industry was quite low then, supporting the Indigenous Timber Association to lobby for the exportation of raw timber.

Mukwa is one of the most important hardwood tree species found in Lupane. The tree produces one of the best timbers in the region and is also valued for its medicinal purposes, which are in high demand for its high value. The populations of this species have declined in the wild due to over-exploitation for timber, forest fires, drought and disease. The rate at which the tree is harvested is of great concern considering the number of trees in the small diameter classes. Teakwood, also found in Lupane, is used for shipbuilding, fine furniture, door and window frames, bridges, cooling-tower louvres and railway cars.


“Our forefathers protected this inheritance for us to benefit. And now, if we fail to do the same, our children will not benefit from these forests. We can’t continue cutting and exporting raw timber; we must create employment through value addition and gain more from processed timber.”
Makesure Ncube


The wood from Lupane timber widely used for furniture is also used by artists in the curio industry particularly in Gwayi and Victoria Falls. It constitutes the largest volume of wood carvings found in curio shops in Southern Africa. Due to its high value, the timber is only occasionally used as firewood or to make charcoal.

Few Lupane residents have since been involved in carpentry while some remain unemployed. Image by The Citizen Bulletin


In 2008, Mukwa was introduced in the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) Red List as near threatened.

Tawanda Mazango, the Programme Coordinator of Lupane Youth for Development Trust, bemoans the continued export of timber, citing that mature timber trees are currently threatened.

“Over the years, there has been overexploitation of this finite resource without due care to regulate its exploitation. It is harvested for transportation, mostly to bigger cities, with the bulk finding its way to the so-called “Lupane Timbers” in Harare. The ideal situation is to locate this company in Lupane, thus offering value addition to custodians of the prime resource,” says Mazango.

Records seen by this publication shows that Lupane Kusile Rural District Council has a monthly quota to harvest 400 cubic metres from the Forestry Commission, and most of the companies since 2010 have been gathering 200 to 250 cubic metres.

In 2010, the local authority cancelled Platinum Timbers’ contract after the company failed to pay royalties amounting to about $120 000 accumulated over a period exceeding a year.


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In 2016 the local authority accused Asmara Timbers of under logging at its Zinapi -Tshongogwe concession resulting in the termination of the contract. In 2016, KRDC terminated a contract with Rise Gate Timber, which was operating at its Shabula-Manase concession. In 2017 Kusile Rural District Council (KRDC) engaged a Chinese firm, Fazhao Investment, to harvest and process timber in the area at Zinapi-Tshongogwe concession.  

Lupane Youth for Development advocates for a by-law by the Kusile Rural District Council to ban the transportation of unprocessed timber outside Lupane.

“It brings employment and business opportunities brought by value addition. It will initiate the industrial development of the district after many years without notable development despite Lupane known for its timber,” says Mazango.

To the residents, harvesting without meaningful proceeds is similar to deforestation. With the high rate of unemployment, timber proceeds can be a game-changer in Lupane, residents say.

“The council has been engaging many contractors without notable results. It’s time for them to engage us locals as we share the common vision to empower our people in Lupane and develop our community. Otherwise, the forests will be extinct without benefits to us,” says one Nxumalo.


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