The nature and extent of landscape change under land resettlement programmes in Zimbabwe

Issues of land and further resettlement are central within the inter related crises that Zimbabwe is currently understood to be experiencing. This paper presents objective data that has not been available to date, concerning the landscape outcomes of the resettlement programme in Zimbabwe as it was implemented in the first two decades after independence. Sequential aerial photograph interpretation and GIS techniques are used to document and explore spatial patterns of resource use, landscape structure and change. Based on 21 resettlement villages across three scheme areas, the analysis explicitly considers the role of national drivers (of the relatively consistent policy and procedures during that time), of agro-ecology and of multidirectional transformations at the village level to raise understanding of these outcomes. The implications of these findings and the value of the methodological techniques for the design and monitoring of further resettlement in the country and the wider region are suggested. Copyright (c) 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.