Green Colonialism in Zimbabwe, 1890-1980 By Vimbai Kwashirai

carcass, and miners and concessionaires in colonial Zimbabwe are like vultures one and two. Foresters and government are represented by vultures three and four, respectively. Africans represent the other vultures on the scene.

The nine chapters of my book are about the cutting, milling, and trading of indigenous hardwood trees found in northwestern Matabeleland. Paralleling the exploitation process was an equally important struggle to conserve the Zambezi teak woodland through fire control, regulation, and rotational cutting. Colonies in Africa were acquired in the late nineteenth century primarily for economic gain, and colonial Zimbabwe was no exception. In what was then Southern Rhodesia, mining and agriculture were the key economic sectors of natural re source extraction by the British. Although classified under agriculture, forestry deserves to be treated as a third distinct sector; it was valuable because it provided energy and timber that helped to make the other sectors, and the rest of the colonial economy, tick. Precisely because of this vital role as an engine for economic growth, foresters and conservationists challenged the rabid capitalist tendencies of miners and concessionaires in exploiting the Zambezi teak woodland and other forests. Exploiters and conservators alike became mired in perennial conflict.

Forest history is a yawning gap in Zimbabwean colonial historiography. This important research is the first of its kind in respect to the sources consulted, subject breadth, and area studied. The Zambezi teak forests constituted the major indigenous woodland in the colony. Because the forests contained many commercially valuable hardwood species like teak, mahogany, and mukwa, they were economically significant. Throughout the seventy-year period discussed, they were intensely exploited. My major argument states that there was constant confiict between the imperatives of exploitation and the ideas of conservation in forest utilisation. In the book, I maintain that the capitalist-engineered ecological dilemma was manifested in forest degradation and denudation primarily for commercial interests. The book juxtaposes the role of capitalism with that of African communities in forest exploitation.