Exploring levels of community participation in natural resource management practices in Nkayi District.

Abstract

This study investigated the levels and forms of community participation in natural resource management (NRM) practices in Nkayi Rural District, Matabeleland North Province, Zimbabwe. Situated in Natural Farming Regions IV and V, Nkayi is one of Zimbabwe's most economically marginalised and food-insecure districts, with the majority of its 116,748 residents depending directly on communal natural resources for their daily livelihoods. Despite the existence of a relatively comprehensive legal and policy framework for community participation in NRM, including the Environmental Management Act (Chapter 20:27), the Rural District Councils Act (Chapter 29:13), and the National Development Strategy 1 (2021–2025), the extent to which genuine community participation is realised at the local level has remained a deeply contested and largely unresolved question. The study was guided by four specific objectives: to assess the current levels and forms of community participation in NRM; to analyse the legal, policy, and institutional frameworks governing such participation; to identify the socio-economic and cultural barriers that hinder effective engagement; and to recommend actionable strategies to enhance community participation. The study adopted a pragmatist research philosophy and a mixed-methods explanatory sequential design, embedded within a case study framework. Data were collected from six purposively selected wards through household questionnaire surveys (n=384), twenty key informant interviews, eighteen focus group discussions with approximately 157 participants, participatory rural appraisal tools including resource mapping, seasonal calendars and Venn diagrams, and a systematic document review. The findings revealed that community participation in NRM in Nkayi District is minimal, predominantly tokenistic, and structurally constrained. Drawing on Arnstein's (1969) ladder of citizen participation, 54.7% of respondents experienced participation at the level of non-participation, 40.6% at the tokenism level, and only 4.7% at the level of genuine citizen power. Women and youth were disproportionately excluded, with female respondents recording higher levels of non-participation (59.2%) than male respondents (48.5%), a difference that was statistically significant (p=0.015). Ward 30, a gazetted forest area whose 546 households are classified as illegal settlers, recorded the most extreme exclusion (66.7% non-participation), with communities bearing the daily costs of wildlife conflict and resource access restrictions while receiving none of the benefits of conservation governance. Community awareness of the legal and policy frameworks governing NRM participation was alarmingly low, with only 18.5% of respondents aware of the Environmental Management Act. NRM institutions at the local level, particularly the Rural District Council, the Environmental Management Agency, and the Forestry Commission, were perceived as largely ineffective in facilitating community participation due to underfunding, top-down governance cultures, and institutional fragmentation. The most significant barriers to participation were poverty (mean score 4.61 on a five-point scale), top-down governance culture (4.54), limited access to information (4.48), gender exclusion (4.39), and low educational attainment (4.31). The study recommends a set of ten integrated strategies for enhancing community participation, including the genuine devolution of decision-making authority to Village Development Committees and Ward Environmental Subcommittees, the translation of NRM governance processes into isiNdebele, the introduction of gender quotas in community governance structures, the establishment of youth-specific participation mechanisms, and the urgent regularisation of Ward 30 communities' legal status combined with the establishment of CAMPFIRE-style co-management arrangements. These recommendations are grounded in the study's empirical findings and informed by evidence from successful community-based NRM models in Namibia, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. The study contributes original, district-level evidence to the literature on community participation and NRM governance in rural Zimbabwe and sub-Saharan Africa more broadly.