Afforestation as a Climate Change Solution: Evaluating its Sustainability, Trade-offs and Long-term Impact in Hurungwe District, Zimbabwe.

Afforestation, the deliberate planting of trees on degraded or non-forested land, is increasingly promoted in Zimbabwe and globally as a nature-based solution to climate change and environmental degradation. However, despite supportive policies, there is limited empirical evidence on how sustainable these tree-planting efforts are, what trade-offs they entail, and what their long-term impacts look like. In the context of Hurungwe District, a climatically vulnerable area, smallholders’ tree-planting is shaped by ecological constraints such as water scarcity, livestock damage, institutional gaps which include weak extension services, unclear land tenure and socio-economic needs balancing food production with tree growth. While many farmers prefer fast-growing exotics for economic returns, there is also strong interest in native species for ecological resilience. These dynamics raise critical questions about whether afforestation can truly deliver both climate benefits and local livelihood gains and under what governance conditions.