LAND TENURE SYSTEMS IN

ZIMBABWE
 HISTORY
• LAND ownership and distribution has been at
the centre of disputes in Zimbabwe since pre-
colonial days.
• This escalated through land appropriation by
the white minority, leading to the war of
liberation, whose major aim was the transfer
of land ownership to the majority blacks
( Chimbindi, 2018).
 DEFINATION
• Land tenure refers to the bundle of rights and
responsibilities under which land is held, used,
transferred, and succeeded(S.J. La Croix, 2002).
• It is used to refer to land tenure prescribed by statutory or
common law; to customary land tenure; and to observed
land tenure practices in a particular historical context.
• Land tenure arrangements vary enormously across urban
and rural areas primarily because of the use of land for
agriculture in rural areas and for residential and business
use in urban areas.
• The land holding rights and obligations in Zimbabwe
find their expression in the country’s four main
systems of land tenure, namely the freehold (private),
state land, communal and leasehold(resettlement)
systems (E.M Shumba, 2001).
• Zimbabwe reached a crucial crossroads in its land
reform with the expiration of the Lancaster House
Constitution in April 1990, which opened the door for
policy debate on alternative land-redistribution
options (M.J Roth, J.W Bruce,1994)
 Freehold
• The freehold tenure system is prevalent in the commercial farming sector
which consists of large scale and small scale commercial farmers and occupy
about 32% of the country’s land area of 39 million ha (YAS, 2013).
• This system is deals with individual land ownership.
• The registered land owner has exclusive property rights and full control and
responsibility over the land and everything attached to it except to the extent
that ownership and exclusive control over the land and some natural resources
may be limited by statutory provisions.
• These limitations relate to changes in land use, controls over public water
courses, felling of indigenous timber resources and controls on wildlife.
• It is often argued that freehold tenure provides land owners with incentives to
conserve and improve the natural resource base.

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 State land
• The State set aside 15% of the country as
gazetted/protected forests (2%) and national parks
(13%).
• These offer good examples of in situ conservation
and sustainable use of Zimbabwe’s biological
heritage
• Public (or state) land ownership may withhold land
for conservation purposes or public land
management and facilitate more equal access to
prime locations (YAS, 2013).
 Communal
• A customary land tenure system whereby local
leaders allocate arable land to households and their
families on a usufruct basis (Dore, 2013).
• This means that households have use rights, but no
rights to rent or sell their land.
• Another feature is that households are entitled to
use common property resources, such as water for
household use and irrigation, woodlands for
firewood and building, and pastures for grazing cattle
and other livestock.
 Leasehold
• The leasehold system type of land tenure requires the payment
of certain amount of money for the use of the land over a stated
period of time.
• It is a special contract existing between a person called the leaser
and another called the lessee for the lease of a piece of land for a
specified period of years, which may be ten years, twenty years
fifty years.
• The lessee will exercise his right on the use and maintenance of
the land for the period of lease.
• The land cannot be used as security to obtain loan from
commercial banks and cannot be developed beyond the lease
agreement terms .
 REFERENCES
• Land Policy in Zimbabwe: A Framework for Discussion Papers (Doré, 10 April 2012)
• Powelson, John P., The Story of Land: A World History of Land Tenure and Agrarian
Reform. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 1988.
• Cheater, A. P. 1982. ‘Formal and informal rights to land in Zimbabwe's black
freehold areas: a case study from Msengezi’, Africa 52 (2), 77–91.
• Moyana, H. V. 1984. The Political Economy of Land in Zimbabwe. Gweru: Mambo
Press .
• Ranger, T. 1985. Peasant Consciousness and Guerilla War in Zimbabwe. Harare:
Zimbabwe Publishing House .
• Rhodesia. 1967. Tribal Trust Land Act (no. 9). Salisbury: Government Printer.
• Rhodesia. 1969. Land Tenure Act (no. 55). Salisbury: Government Printer
• Zimbabwe-Rhodesia. 1979. Land Acquisition Act (no. 15). Salisbury: Government
Printer