Investigations by The Weekly has established a number of factors that have resulted in the inherent deforestation of Christmas Pass. There is a massive scramble for wood from its indigenous natural trees.
The first one is the prevalence of illegal firewood vending in Mutare which has seen culprits targeting the Christmas Pass trees.
Vendors trading illegally in firewood openly revealed that there was once a haulage truck that looked broken down during the day when in fact at night it was the busiest vehicle transporting poached firewood from the Christmas Pass Mountain.
“That place is not guarded. No one guards a mountain. So, we do as we please at night by moving the firewood into town after poaching it there,” a firewood vendor in Mutare told The Weekly.
Another reason for the rampant deforestation of Christmas Pass is the existence of sprouting backyard food vending in Mutare City which provides a ready market for the firewood poached from the mountain.
The food vending stalls which prepare various dishes of meals for sale at cheap prices use firewood poached from the mountain as energy for preparing their meals.
Culprits who are into charcoal making business have also been plundering the Christmas Pass Mountain while a lot of trees have been indiscriminately cut down by illegal brick-moulding syndicates. They use the firewood from the Christmas Pass to heat ovens for their bricks.
The rolling power cuts by the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) have also seen people from surrounding areas resorting to the deforestation of the Christmas Pass in search of firewood for basic household chores such as cooking.
The high charges of alternative energy sources like gas which goes for an average of $1.80 per kg has also contributed to the problem. People from residential areas that are nearby who are impoverished and cannot afford alternative sources of energy see an opportunity to plunder the trees in the Christmas Pass as a viable means for them to earn a living.
Maxwell Makaruse, the chief security officer of Mutare City Council told The Weekly that his department is overwhelmed by the firewood poachers from Christmas Pass and is at crossroads on how to deal with the menace.
“We have a challenge of manpower. Our security officers are very few in numbers to deal with the firewood poachers. It is for that reason that we cannot afford to have night shifts,” he said.
Makaruse also revealed that Mutare City Council has of late been finding it difficult to recruit more security officers.
“There are some processes both internal and external which we need to fulfill before we make any recruitments. It is the reason why we are still battling to recruit more security personnel to effectively deal with the firewood poachers from Christmas Pass using the bylaws that allow us to arrest them,” he said.
Centre for Natural Resource Governance (CNRG) has lately been calling upon authorities to ensure that they fulfil their mandate to protect natural resources such as the Christmas Pass.
The organisation has also partnered with Environmental Buddies – a community-based organization – to plant trees as a way of ensuring afforestation so as to combat climate change.
Cutting down of trees has globally been recognised as a major cause of climate change and under its pillar of climate justice, CNRG has been rolling out programmes to help reduce effects of the natural disaster.
Recently, CNRG held a two-day climate justice workshop in Mutare to commemorate the deaths of the Cyclone Idai disaster that affected Chimanimani and Chipinge.
The cyclone was a result of Climate Change that can be accelerated by the illegal deforestation taking place at the Christmas Pass.
CNRG and its TaCCET partners have also been raising awareness in communities of Manicaland on the issue of climate change.
One of the major teachings during the community awareness meetings have been consistent knowledge sharing on planting indigenous trees and the need to stop cutting down trees as a way to mitigate climate change.