Forest Products, Livelihoods and Conservation

248 Palm utilisation for basketry in Xini Ward, Sengwe communal areas, Zimbabwe

Once the stem is more than 1.5 m tall the palm is rarely harvested for

craft production since cutting of the leaf at the rachii-petiole junction is

complicated by the height and usually these palms produce hard leaves which

are too brittle and unpliable for craft production. It takes 90 years for a palm

to reach a height of 30 m (Fanshawe 1967).

Leaf production in H. petersiana juvenile plants is a continuous process at

the rate of 1.0 to 1.5 leaves per month (Fanshawe 1967). Cunningham and

Milton (1987), however, found that palm suckers produced 3.8 leaves per year

in plants of leaf-size class 101 cm to 120 cm and 2.8 leaves per year^ in plants

of leaf-size class 41 cm to 60 cm. In another study conducted in Zimbabwe a

similar result of four leaves per year for the size class 101 cm to 120 cm was

recorded (Sola 1998).

Besides craft production H. petersiana is also used for sap tapping for the

production of a local wine. Tapping is usually done between August and March

of the following year. It is a man’s activity and a skilled tapper can tap 25 to

50 ramets per day. The wine sells for US$0.16^2 per litre (Sola 1998). Sap tapping

involves burning of clumps to remove dead leaves and pruning of the ramets

to expose the underground carbohydrate storage organ. Tappers insert V-shaped

leaves into trimmed ramets for sap collection. Tapping continues until most,

if not all, of the meristem has been removed. It is this process that poses a

threat to the basket industry since not all ramets recover, especially when all

the meristem has been removed (Sola 1998). However, most of the ramets

recovered through suckering and shoots if some meristem remained.

Another threat to the basketry industry is resource scarcity. Cunningham

and Milton (1987) found that as the craft industry expanded, the leaves became

time-consuming and expensive to obtain because of ever increasing distances

to harvesting areas. In Botswana, high harvesting intensities with an offtake

rate of 30% resulted in a decrease in leaf size (Cunningham and Milton 1987).

Besides leaf harvesting and grazing by livestock the greatest threat to H.

petersiana is land use conversion.

Study area: Sengwe Communal Areas

Sengwe Communal Areas is located in south-eastern Zimbabwe, in an area

bordering South Africa and Mozambique (Figure 2). Low rainfall and frequent

droughts threaten household food security as they negatively impact on crop

and livestock production, the two major sources of household income (Sola

1998). To supplement their household income the people of Sengwe have

adopted craft production activities using forest resources, of which the palm

is the most widely used (ENDA unpublished).

Study site: Xini ward

This study focuses on Xini (22°05’S: 31°20’E), one of the four wards in

Sengwe Communal Areas. The area is bounded by the Zimbabwe–Mozambique

border, Gona re Zhou National Park and Malipati safari area. Xini ward shares

borders with Sengwe ward and with Xibavahlengwe ward in the north.

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