42. The paper has looked at livestock herd trends in Zimbabwe over a period of 90 years, mainly focusing on the communal areas where there has been long-standing concern about the longer term effect of herd growth on environmental deterioration. From the aggregate data analyzed here, there is little or no evidence of either overgrazing or range degradation having occurred over the historical periods considered. The trends in Zimbabwe, however, suggest ever-increasing pressures or the communal land resources as population and food needs expand. Livestock numbers can be expected to grow until the range resource is under stress from higher stocking rates and increased marketing among livestock populations and range deterioration are foreseeable outcomes.
43. On the other hand, this paper could not really assess the likelihood of "irreversible" damage to the range resource. A policy of quantification of range deterioration by measurable means is recommended as a basis for any future government action. In regard to the latter, perhaps the more important lesson of this study was to indicate what have not been successful intervening strategies. For example, enforced destocking has not been of lasting impact and had high political and economic costs in implementation, while the experience of NLHA demonstrated the unpredictability of radical tenurial change.
