In many parts of rural Zimbabwe, wetlands are the thin green lines that keep entire communities alive. They store water, regulate floods, recharge rivers, and provide fertile soils for food production. Yet for decades, these fragile ecosystems have been treated as open land for cultivation, grazing and settlement, slowly being pushed to collapse.
As climate change tightens its grip through prolonged droughts and unpredictable rainfall, the degradation of wetlands has become not just an environmental issue, but a direct threat to livelihoods, food security and survival. Against this backdrop, the Southern Alliance for Indigenous Resources (SAFIRE) has embarked on one of Zimbabwe’s most ambitious community-driven efforts to restore damaged wetlands and the ecosystems that depend on them. Working mainly in the country’s arid lowveld and other climate-vulnerable regions, SAFIRE’s approach goes far beyond conservation for its own sake.
It links ecosystem restoration to income, food, and dignity, ensuring that people see value in protecting the landscapes that sustain them. Founded in 1994, SAFIRE operates across Manicaland, Masvingo and Matabeleland South provinces, where low and erratic rainfall, droughts and floods have become part of everyday life. Its work focuses on ecosystem restoration, sustainable agriculture, clean energy and nature-based enterprises, including honey, baobab, marula and mopane worms, which together benefit more than 33,000 households.
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To date, SAFIRE has supported the planting of more than 597,000 trees while protecting wetlands and degraded lands that are critical to climate resilience In many rural districts, wetlands were once the backbone of agriculture, providing moisture even when the rains failed. Over time, however, population pressure and poverty pushed farmers onto these fragile lands. Vegetation was cleared, water channels were disturbed, and soils were compacted, leaving wetlands unable to store and slowly release water.
What followed was a vicious cycle of drying, crop failure and deeper poverty. SAFIRE’s response has been to reverse that cycle through ecosystem-based adaptation – a method that uses nature itself as a shield against climate change. Wetlands are fenced and protected from overuse, allowing vegetation and water flows to recover.
At the same time, communities are supported with alternative livelihood options so that conservation does not mean hunger. One of the clearest examples of this approach can be found at Romorehoto Wetland, where years of overuse had left the ecosystem badly degraded. After the wetland was placed under community protection, it rebounded quickly, becoming a reliable water source once again.
From that recovery emerged new economic opportunities, including aquaculture and small-scale irrigation. For farmer Philip Mutudza, the restored wetland changed everything. Once entirely dependent on rainfall, he had watched his harvests and income shrink as droughts grew longer and more severe.
With access to water from Romorehoto, Philip built two fish ponds at his homestead, stocked with fingerlings from the community project. He now expects to harvest fish twice a year, with each cycle projected to earn more than USD 2,000, while also supplying protein for his family of six. The system is circular and regenerative.
Nutrient-rich pond water is diverted into his vegetable garden, boosting soil fertility and supporting crops such as maize and leafy greens. Instead of exhausting the land, the wetland and the ponds are now restoring it. Philip has also adopted Farmer-Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR), a technique that allows indigenous trees to regrow from existing root systems.
“FMNR has put me in control of my land,” he says. “I now see my land as an asset to be managed, not a resource to be exhausted.”
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