The Wetlands Crisis and Wealthy Landowners in Zimbabwe (Harare): Urban Environmental Conflicts and Contestations
The Wetlands Crisis and Wealthy Landowners in Zimbabwe (Harare): Urban Environmental Conflicts and Contestations
Monday, 7 July 2025: 00:00
Location: SJES030 (Faculty of Legal, Economic, and Social Sciences (JES))
Oral Presentation
Zimbabwe’s commitment to wetland well-being as a signatory to the Ramsar
Convention, an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of
wetlands, as well as its own environmental protection regulations codified in the
Environmental Management Act, frequently encounter complex social dynamics, such as
conflicts with wealthy landowners. This study explores these dynamics by focusing on
two high-profile cases that made headlines in the country’s capital, Harare. In the first
case, a real estate mogul with an estimated net worth of US$690 million, Ken Sharpe,
faced significant criticism from environmentalists and residents for constructing
upmarket apartments on wetlands in Borrowdale. In the second case, Emmanuel
Makandiwa, a self-styled prophet with an estimated net worth of US$150 million,
courted controversy when he constructed his mega-church on a wetland in
Chitungwiza. This study seeks to capture both the public and ecological debates around
the disputes that pitted these two super-rich landowners and their proxies on the one
hand and the Environmental Management Authority (EMA), the Harare Residents Trust
(HRT) and the Harare Wetlands Trust (HWT) on the other. In the process, this work will
capture the paradoxical engagements of the super-rich with wetlands that often
fluctuate between reclamation and extraction with the aims of growth and development
and restoration, with the aims of sustainability, protection and conservation. Last, the
work will contrast the responses by Harare Metropolitan Province’s local urban
authorities, primarily the Harare City Council and the Chitungwiza Town Council, to
these two high-profile wetland violations against their responses to the same from
poorer landowners such as housing cooperatives that also built on wetlands. I will
consult various sources and repositories, including council minutes and proceedings,
newspapers, reports, and expert interviews with the EMA, HRT, and HWT.
Convention, an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of
wetlands, as well as its own environmental protection regulations codified in the
Environmental Management Act, frequently encounter complex social dynamics, such as
conflicts with wealthy landowners. This study explores these dynamics by focusing on
two high-profile cases that made headlines in the country’s capital, Harare. In the first
case, a real estate mogul with an estimated net worth of US$690 million, Ken Sharpe,
faced significant criticism from environmentalists and residents for constructing
upmarket apartments on wetlands in Borrowdale. In the second case, Emmanuel
Makandiwa, a self-styled prophet with an estimated net worth of US$150 million,
courted controversy when he constructed his mega-church on a wetland in
Chitungwiza. This study seeks to capture both the public and ecological debates around
the disputes that pitted these two super-rich landowners and their proxies on the one
hand and the Environmental Management Authority (EMA), the Harare Residents Trust
(HRT) and the Harare Wetlands Trust (HWT) on the other. In the process, this work will
capture the paradoxical engagements of the super-rich with wetlands that often
fluctuate between reclamation and extraction with the aims of growth and development
and restoration, with the aims of sustainability, protection and conservation. Last, the
work will contrast the responses by Harare Metropolitan Province’s local urban
authorities, primarily the Harare City Council and the Chitungwiza Town Council, to
these two high-profile wetland violations against their responses to the same from
poorer landowners such as housing cooperatives that also built on wetlands. I will
consult various sources and repositories, including council minutes and proceedings,
newspapers, reports, and expert interviews with the EMA, HRT, and HWT.