Green Colonialism in Zimbabwe, 1890-1980 By Vimbai Kwashirai

plywood, construction, and manufacturing. The forest cover of industrialised countries of Europe gradually stabilised in the second half of the twentieth century, largely because of more intensive agriculture production on less land and the use of nonwood energy sources such as electricity. But acid rain threatens to disrupt the longstanding balance between forest and human economic demands.⁶¹ In the United States, forests have steadily increased in extent and density because the American economy has enabled importation of wood products at affordable prices. Also, on the East Coast, agriculture went into decline in the twentieth century and secondary forest growth spread. The mechanisation and intensification of American agriculture also allowed for the steady shrinkage of cropland with no loss in overall production. This change has been combined with successful conservation efforts in wilderness and forest areas.⁶²

In contrast, in Africa, Asia, and parts of Latin America, the demand for timber, firewood, and land has prevented such a reforestation. Loggers on these continents used their connections with government to further commercial interests at the expense of valuable forest land. Rietbergen argues that governments accommodated loggers through generous tax treatment, direct subsidies, heavily subsidised credit, and favourable pricing policies, undervaluing forest and other resources.⁶³ He calculates that Africa lost 40 million hectares of natural forest in the 1980s due to logging and other demands. Logging was particularly heavy in west Africa. In the 1960s, Nigeria was a major timber exporter but became a net importer of wood products valued in excess of US$100 million per year.⁶⁴ Political instability in the Congo basin allowed for unchecked forest exploitation. Loggers have tended to shift from areas of Southeast Asia and Africa, where there is a timber shortage, to Latin America, where the great temptation has been to follow a similar downhill path of overexploitation of a resource initially seen as infinite.⁶⁵

As was the case elsewhere in Africa, logging on teak woodland was based on agreements between the state and concessionaires. These agreements regulated duration, forest boundaries, tax levels, rules of conduct,