AGRICULTURE GLOBAL PRACTICE NOTE Valuing Ecosystem Services in Zimbabwe Photo: Eva Mont / Shutterstock Valuing ecosystem services—the benefits humans obtain from earth’s many life-support systems—is an important step in devising interventions to achieve sustainable livelihoods and climate resil- ience. The services provided by healthy ecosystems are essential for supporting life. Their loss would have a disproportionately large impact on developing nations. Photo: Evenfh / Shutterstock AGRICULTURE GLOBAL PRACTICE NOTE—JULY 2023 Zimbabwe is highly dependent on natural resources, assessment was undertaken to rapidly identify areas in including forests, highly variable underground water, Zimbabwe providing a high level of key ecosystem ser- and related sectors for livelihoods and economic growth. vices that are benefitting communities, as well as areas However, the country is experiencing high levels of land experiencing, or at risk of significant land degradation. degradation, which threatens the resource base on The assessment expanded on and added granularity which most of the nation’s population depends. Already, to previous mapping of ecosystem services under the land degradation costs up to 6.3 percent of the coun- Land Degradation Neutrality Framework of the United try’s gross domestic product (GDP) annually, and this will Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). worsen with climate change. The national screening identified several candidate focal landscapes for more detailed assessment, including the In response, the World Bank is supporting Zimbabwe to 40,000 km2 Mazowe Catchment north of Harare, which sustainably manage the ecosystem services provided by was estimated to provide a high level of ecosystem ser- critical landscapes. The Technical Assistance (TA) funded vices and thus good opportunities for conserving and by the Global Partnership for Sustainable and Resilient enhancing services provision. Drawing on the findings Landscapes (ProGreen) entailed a Whole-of-Government of the national-level screening assessment, the selection collaboration between the Environment Directorate of the Mazowe Catchment north of Harare (figure 1) as of the Ministry of Environment, Climate, Tourism and a focal landscape was undertaken by the government, Hospitality Industry (MECTHI) and counterparts in the considering its local knowledge of the candidate areas. Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Fisheries and Rural Development. The TA aims to generate the evidence Detailed assessment indicates that productive natural base for the development of a scaled-up, integrated ecosystems in the Mazowe Catchment are being lost and biodiversity and sustainable production landscapes degraded by poorly planned and managed commercial investment project in the country. A national screening and small-scale livelihood activities, and the threats will be further exacerbated by climate change. The catchment lost over 1,100 km2 of its dense woodland and over 400 km2 (90 FIGURE 1 Results of the national screening percent) of its wooded grassland, mostly to dryland culti- analysis of five key ecosystem services: food, vation, in the last 25 years. Cropland expansion, fuelwood erosion control, water, carbon, and ecotourism), harvesting, and illegal mining associated with poverty, pop- ulation growth, and lack of secure property rights are the and their potential beneficiaries major drivers of land degradation. Cropland extensification as the main strategy for increasing food production, land scarcity and poor land management practices lead to high erosion rates, particularly in communal areas, contributing Mashonaland Mashonaland to water quality and sedimentation issues. Population pres- West Central sure has also increased the harvesting of firewood and other natural resources and worsened grazing pressure on the increasingly small areas of remaining grazing land. Harare Climate change could contribute to significant reductions in crop yield due to greater heat stress and more erratic rainfall Manicaland patterns. Climate change is expected to reduce groundwa- Mashonaland Matabeleland East ter recharge and surface runoff in the Mazowe Catchment. North Although this is expected to be moderate relative to other Midlands areas in Zimbabwe, water availability for agriculture and Bulawayo Masvingo domestic use will be negatively affected by increased evaporation losses and unreliable rainfall patterns. Matabeleland South The TA also reveals that the ecosystem services sup- Service + plied by natural ecosystems are more valuable than the Beneficiaries agricultural production value of cultivated areas. Within Many the Mazowe catchment, cultivated areas contribute a gross margin value of US$68 million per year, while the remaining natural areas support a range of provisioning, regulating, and cultural ecosystem services amounting Fewer to $429 million per year.  Ecosystem inputs to livestock This map shows the overlap of ecosystem services and benefit production are estimated at US$65 million per year. Wild ‘hotspots’—watersheds that provide the most services and where resource harvesting is estimated to be worth at least the most beneficiaries potentially rely on them. US$106 million per year. Rural tourism attractions in the 2 AGRICULTURE GLOBAL PRACTICE NOTE—JULY 2023 TABLE 1 Summary of the current values of selected ecosystem services assessed in this study, US$, millions per year. Value per year Types of services Explanation Value to whom (US$, millions) Wild resources Value of wild harvested foods, fuel, and raw Rural households 105.7 materials net of human inputs Cultivated production Production value net of human inputs Communal farmers 38.0 Commercial farmers 30.2 Livestock production Production value net of human inputs Communal farmers 43.1 Commercial farmers 21.6 Sediment regulation Cost savings due to vegetation capacity to Water utilities and 166.3 hold soil in place or trap eroded soils before private dam owners entering streams Flow regulation (base- Cost savings in water resources infrastructure Water utilities and/or 83.9 flow and groundwater) due to facilitation of recharge by vegetation direct water users Tourism Net income generated from nature-based Tourism sector 42.9 tourism to natural attractions Carbon retention Avoided climate change damages from Zimbabwe 30.0 avoided carbon dioxide emissions from eco- Rest of world 1,230.0 system degradation Mazowe Catchment were estimated to generate about TABLE 2 Present value of costs and benefits of US$43 million or 4.6 percent of national attraction-based landscape interventions in Mazowe. tourism. Maintaining natural ecosystem cover in the study area saves about US$250 million per year in water supply   $ million costs, while maintaining the remaining forest cover avoids Costs 422.0 billions of dollars of global climate change damages and offers a potential source of income for Zimbabwe (table 1). Restore degraded natural habitats 200.5 Establish conservancies 0.8 Public investment to scale up sustainable landscape Implement climate-smart agriculture management will make economic sense with every dollar (50% adoption) 179.7 invested in landscape interventions generating $1.7 ben- efits (table 2). At the whole Mazowe catchment level, res- Install riparian buffers 41.0 toration of degraded habitats is estimated to cost $200.5 Benefits 709.9 million over a 25-year period, whereas climate-smart Avoided dredging (sediment) 107.8 agriculture (CSA) implementation will cost $179.7 million. Changes in land management following adoption of CSA Avoided dam costs (change in recharge) 125.0 is estimated to generate the largest ecosystem services Gains in wild harvested resources 21.1 benefits for the whole Mazowe catchment ($258.7 mil- Changes in agricultural production 258.7 lion), followed by revenue from carbon credits ($191.9 million). Interventions to maintain soil, vegetation cover, Revenue from carbon credits 191.9 biodiversity, and agricultural productivity are mutually Tourism gains 5.2 supportive and include supporting, regulating, and/or Net present value 287.9 incentivizing (a) CSA practices which increase the pro- ductivity of land and reduce rates of land conversion, soil B:C ratio / ROI 1.7 loss, and water consumption; (b) limiting the use of graz- ing and wild resources to sustainable levels to maintain ROI for farmland interventions 1.44 their productivity as well as other services; and (c) restor- ing and protecting key natural areas and their biodiversity ROI for natural land interventions 1.86 to capitalize on their regulating and cultural services. Duration is 25 years at 4.56%. AGRICULTURE GLOBAL PRACTICE NOTE—JULY 2023 3 Some of the policy actions to support effective scaling up encouraging private investments in commercial for- of sustainable landscape management include estry for all socioeconomic category of farmers down to smallholder commercial woodlots thereby enhanc- (a) Support the upscaling of CSA interventions in the ing household income diversification and resilience. Mazowe Catchment following the recommendations of the Zimbabwe’s CSA Investment Plan (CSAIP) (c) Design and pilot payments for ecosystem services which aims to strengthen the country’s agriculture (PES). The analysis has generated first-order evi- sector’s resilience to climate change. Priority invest- dence to support the design and implementation of ments recommended by the CSAIP include on-farm two pilot schemes for payment for ecosystem ser- investments in improved crops, fertilizers, irrigation, vices (PES) based on appropriate global examples. and animal management to increase farmer produc- The first is sustainable landscape management to tion and build resilience; off-farm investments in stor- reduce land degradation and soil erosion on catch- age, processing, marketing, and research & devel- ments of water-supply dams for urban settlements opment to increase the agricultural value chain’s in Mazowe Catchment. Candidate urban settlements productivity and efficiency; and cross-cutting invest- include Bindura, Murewa and Mutoko. The second is ments in land reform and water management to help sustainable landscape management scheme to veri- the country realize its full agricultural potential. fiably generate and sell emissions reduction through carbon funds. A carefully selected catchment such (b) Invest in Sustainable Forestry Management (SFM) as the Mazowe could include hard investments and across the Landscape. The high rate of deforestation governance arrangements to generate and sell observed in this study requires investment in sustain- carbon credits from an integrated combination of able forest management to maintain the health and climate-smart agriculture, sustainable forestry man- integrity of forest ecosystems, conserve biodiversity, agement, biodiversity conservation and sustainable mitigate climate change, and provide livelihoods for landscape management. communities that depend on forests. Investing in sustainable forest management will also help con- In conclusion, the TA highlighted the role of the private serve ecosystem services, provide social and com- sector in biodiversity conservation and sustainable land- munity benefits, and align development efforts with scape management in Zimbabwe through i) financing the growing trend of green investments and impact projects that contribute to the conservation, restoration, investing for a green economy. Key investments for and sustainable use of landscape; and ii) directing finan- consideration in this regard include reforestation cial flows away from projects with negative impacts on and afforestation of severely degraded land, con- biodiversity and ecosystem services. However, govern- version, and passive reforestation of marginal agri- ment holds the key to harnessing the power of the sector cultural land into silvo-pastoral systems for adapted to mobilize the needed private finance at scale to pro- livestock species or community conservancies and tect nature. Government can support the integration of biodiversity criteria in private sector decision making by adopting natural capital accounting and making relevant data available as public good. Secondly, environmental fiscal policy reforms that value natural capital can provide incentives for the private sector to co-invest in the sus- tainable use of natural resources and contribute toward net domestic resource mobilization. Thirdly, government can drive the green transition by promoting policies such as greening the supply chain to drive changes in corpo- rate behavior. Lastly, there is a need for multi-sectoral, people centered approach to natural resources manage- ment by ensuring the integration of natural capital con- sideration into planning, budgeting, implementation, and decision-making at the national and local levels to help Photo: Eva Mont / Shutterstock build climate resilience. Internet: www.worldbank.org/agriculture Twitter: http://twitter.com/wb_agriculture