Online Reporter
Johnson Siamachira
Features Correspondent
WHERE in the world could you come face-to-face with a full-grown rhino and feel completely safe?
The answer is Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, where the animal in question is made of solid wood.
Intricately detailed, this artwork is one of thousands in varying sizes and shapes on display at various outdoor curio markets in the centre of the country’s top holiday resort.
But the hardwood trees from which these beautiful carvings are crafted are in danger of extinction, say environmentalists.
A recent study on Zimbabwe’s wood carving industry by local and international researchers discovered it has become a roaring business in Victoria Falls.
Tourists have paid as much as US$1 500 for life-sized works and giant busts.
“There is money in selling wood carvings,” confirms Moses Mugande, a sculptor at the bustling Elephants Walk Shopping and Artist’s Village curio market. “We can even exchange some of our work for precious goods, or even formal wear suits.”
Even those tourists who do not want to buy the sculptures have a penchant for photographing them.
Environmentally, carvers poaching trees deforest the woodlands. As more individuals turn to making crafts, sustainability deteriorates.
Deforestation threatens not only a healthy ecosystem in terms of the environment, but a lack of woody material also has a direct effect on people.
As Mugande phrases it: “No wood means no work for most ordinary residents in Victoria Falls”
Most of the hardwood used by sculptors at the Victoria Falls is obtained legally or illegally from the surrounding rural areas and nearby state-owned land. In State or nationally protected areas, the Forestry Commission practices strict law enforcement.
Previously, the Forestry Commission allowed local people to remove dead wood from the forest. However, because carvers have poached to such an extent, rarely are people allowed to legally extract any kind of wood now. However, despite regulations, poaching continues.
Another sculptor, Ndumiso Muleya, denies using illegally obtained wood but says that some of his colleagues have been fined for the offence.
“I get hardwood from the Forestry Commission. They supply hardwood that has died naturally but it’s not enough to satisfy the demand as not many trees die naturally in the wild,” he says.
“Wet wood is easier to work on than dry wood and most sculptures are tempted to poach wet wood, instead of being content with the small supply of dry wood from the Forestry Commission.”
Although he is aware that the making of these large sculptures was depleting his country’s hardwoods, the sculptor says it is the only way he and many other wood workers can support their families.
“The stomach taught me the art of wood carving,” Muleya says, adding: “We entered this business because there are no jobs. Then frequent droughts brought more economic challenges. Hence, woodcarving is our only source of livelihood.”
The current woodcarving boom may be good news for the tens of thousands of craftsmen dotted in villages, towns and cities across the country, but not for the rapidly dwindling indigenous hardwood trees.
To combat the loss, conservationists are calling on the Forestry Commission to introduce an environmentally friendly label or stamp to the finished carvings.
They have also asked the Commission to spearhead a campaign to educate sculptors and their clients to trade only in wood marked with a seal of approval.
“The market is there. The tourists will always buy, and now there is a high price paid for wooden sculptures. What would also help is for sculptures to use pine, which is exotic but grows faster than hardwoods which take years to grow,” says the Victoria Falls Wildlife Trust, a local non-governmental organisation.
The move to life-size and larger sculptures in a trade once typified by smaller mantel piece objects is believed to be a direct response to market demand.
“This trend is threatening our mahogany, teak and mukwa trees,” adds the Victoria Falls Wildlife Trust.
A further threat to Zimbabwe’s trees is a growing trade in root art. For example, the roots of mukuti tree, which can be as long as 68 metres deep, making it the plant with the deepest known roots, are cut, stripped of their bark then varnished and used as household ornaments.
“I have seen people selling these roots on the roadside. And, of course, when the roots are cut the trees die,” says sculptor Mugande.
“The long-term damages this booming trade is bringing have yet to be documented, and when we see the damage, it will be too late,” says Innocent Hodzonge, executive director at Environmental Africa, a locally-based non-governmental organisation which implements environmental development projects in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. —New Ziana.
