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Conversations with Nature Spirits
THE ROLE OF MORE-THAN-HUMAN INTERACTIONS
IN GENERATING CHANGE
This conversation hosted at the Chikukwa Ecological Land Use Community Trust, a small
community-generated organisation that emerged in 1991, when some residents noticed that their
village spring was drying up, seems prescient.
This group would meet to discuss and plan their actions, working side by side to replant the
steep water catchment with indigenous trees, and to create awareness of the need to protect these
areas. The springs and pools below hold special signifcance as sacred places in which water
spirits and mermaids reside and, if disturbed, will abandon the spring so that the water will stop
fowing. According to our custom, it is forbidden to clean black pots (used for cooking) or to use
soap when washing in the springs.
From a Western rationalist perspective, this links deeply held spiritual beliefs with practical
water quality considerations for downstream users.
As may be the case, nonetheless, this re-linking of the cultural, spiritual and ecological from the
outset ensured that the group had the support of the Chief, who later gifted 1 hectare (ha) of land
for the development of our permaculture centre.
The drought and cyclone that followed in 1992 also had a devastating effect in Chikukwa. This
dramatic event, while far less destructive than the more recent cyclone, served as a catalyst for
change.
With more people joining the voluntary workforce to rehabilitate our landscape, much of the
knowledge travelled from household to household, farmer to farmer, with many developing their
home plots with orchards depending on rainwater catchment patterns, and sharing and adapting
skills.
In this way, traditional knowledge and wisdom was blended with exogenous strategies and ideas
through extended networks. 3
As our reputation grew, we generated funds by training others, and our community was able
to support its own projects. Indigenous trees and woodlots were planted, with seed collected from
different areas. Erosion gullies were flled with stones and planted with wattle. Chikukwa’s terraces
took shape from contoured swales with raised bunds planted with vetiver grass, and bananas, previously thought impossible to grow, are now a major crop for consumption and trade. As terracing
reduced soil loss, yield improvements were quickly apparent; and the introduction of trees led to
increased availability of diverse foods.
These patterns, mapped from previous crises, are important for the recollection of our historical
memory – thought to have been washed away by the 2019 cyclone, again leaving people exposed
and vulnerable to manipulation. Yet, nothing ever stands still.
Successive events since Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980 have seen the population of Chikukwa
expand exponentially, with people bringing with them different faiths and cultural norms. Some
were workers stranded after the collapse of the logging industry and de-industrialisation in 2003,
while others were Chikukwans from Mozambique who arrived after the 2001 designation of the
Transfrontier Conservation Area. Further migratory fows resulted from the politically motivated
urban clearances of 2005. 4 Those arriving with few farming skills placed signifcant pressure on
fuel wood resources. This period is viewed as one of signifcant social–ecological disruption in
Chikukwa.
In 1991, before the other pressures, they had already started misbehaving … they cut down trees
in sacred spaces and even around springs. There was an old mbuya [grandmother] looking after
3 Zimbabwe was also an early adopter of agroecology, since Australian permaculturalist Bill Mollison was invited to host
the frst workshop in Harare by a pioneering group of concerned teachers with links to Chikukwa in 1988.
4 Referred to colloquially as the ‘tsunami’ due to its wide social impacts, Operation Murambatsvina (‘to clean out the
flth’) is thought to have directly evicted 700,000 people, with 2.4 million people nationally affected by the resulting rural
migration (Potts, 2006).
Conversations with Nature Spirits
THE ROLE OF MORE-THAN-HUMAN INTERACTIONS
IN GENERATING CHANGE
This conversation hosted at the Chikukwa Ecological Land Use Community Trust, a small
community-generated organisation that emerged in 1991, when some residents noticed that their
village spring was drying up, seems prescient.
This group would meet to discuss and plan their actions, working side by side to replant the
steep water catchment with indigenous trees, and to create awareness of the need to protect these
areas. The springs and pools below hold special signifcance as sacred places in which water
spirits and mermaids reside and, if disturbed, will abandon the spring so that the water will stop
fowing. According to our custom, it is forbidden to clean black pots (used for cooking) or to use
soap when washing in the springs.
From a Western rationalist perspective, this links deeply held spiritual beliefs with practical
water quality considerations for downstream users.
As may be the case, nonetheless, this re-linking of the cultural, spiritual and ecological from the
outset ensured that the group had the support of the Chief, who later gifted 1 hectare (ha) of land
for the development of our permaculture centre.
The drought and cyclone that followed in 1992 also had a devastating effect in Chikukwa. This
dramatic event, while far less destructive than the more recent cyclone, served as a catalyst for
change.
With more people joining the voluntary workforce to rehabilitate our landscape, much of the
knowledge travelled from household to household, farmer to farmer, with many developing their
home plots with orchards depending on rainwater catchment patterns, and sharing and adapting
skills.
In this way, traditional knowledge and wisdom was blended with exogenous strategies and ideas
through extended networks. 3
As our reputation grew, we generated funds by training others, and our community was able
to support its own projects. Indigenous trees and woodlots were planted, with seed collected from
different areas. Erosion gullies were flled with stones and planted with wattle. Chikukwa’s terraces
took shape from contoured swales with raised bunds planted with vetiver grass, and bananas, previously thought impossible to grow, are now a major crop for consumption and trade. As terracing
reduced soil loss, yield improvements were quickly apparent; and the introduction of trees led to
increased availability of diverse foods.
These patterns, mapped from previous crises, are important for the recollection of our historical
memory – thought to have been washed away by the 2019 cyclone, again leaving people exposed
and vulnerable to manipulation. Yet, nothing ever stands still.
Successive events since Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980 have seen the population of Chikukwa
expand exponentially, with people bringing with them different faiths and cultural norms. Some
were workers stranded after the collapse of the logging industry and de-industrialisation in 2003,
while others were Chikukwans from Mozambique who arrived after the 2001 designation of the
Transfrontier Conservation Area. Further migratory fows resulted from the politically motivated
urban clearances of 2005. 4 Those arriving with few farming skills placed signifcant pressure on
fuel wood resources. This period is viewed as one of signifcant social–ecological disruption in
Chikukwa.
In 1991, before the other pressures, they had already started misbehaving … they cut down trees
in sacred spaces and even around springs. There was an old mbuya [grandmother] looking after
3 Zimbabwe was also an early adopter of agroecology, since Australian permaculturalist Bill Mollison was invited to host
the frst workshop in Harare by a pioneering group of concerned teachers with links to Chikukwa in 1988.
4 Referred to colloquially as the ‘tsunami’ due to its wide social impacts, Operation Murambatsvina (‘to clean out the
flth’) is thought to have directly evicted 700,000 people, with 2.4 million people nationally affected by the resulting rural
migration (Potts, 2006).