Zimbabwe Wetlands Policy Draft

Introduction

Zimbabwe is endowed with various natural resources including wetlands. These cover 3% of the area(11 717.4 km2). Of the available wetlands, a meagre 21% are stable while 18% are severely degraded and 61% moderately degraded. This excludes reservoirs, dams and impoundments that cover 652 151ha and permanent rivers and streams that cover over 5700km. The country has two categories of wetlands which are inland wetlands and man-made wetlands. The former tend to decrease with decreasing amount of mean annual rainfall from agro-ecological Natural Regions I to V. They are further subdivided into flood plains, riverine, pans, swamps, dambos/vleis and artificial impoundments and are also known by various terms such as vleis, dambos, matoro, mapani, dekete, dufunya or amaxhaphozi. All these types of wetlands represent complex hydrological and hydrogeology patterns of wetlands influenced by amounts of rainfall received and its drainage, respectively and latter also influenced by the soils and the hydrogeology.

Since acceding to the convention in May 2013, Zimbabwe has developed two national reports on the status and implementation of the convention. The first report was submitted in 2015 and the second report in January 2018.  The country has designated seven wetlands of international importance. These are Lakes Chivero and Manyame, Driefontein Grasslands, Chinhoyi Caves, Manapools, Victoria Falls National Park, Cleveland Dam and Monavale Vlei. 

Read the full draft policy here (551KB PDF)

Source: Ministry of Environment, Climate, Tourism and Hospitality Industry

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