Harare City Council threatens to terminate all crops along streams

Harare City Council has warned ‘city’ farmers against stream cultivation saying the move will be treated with the contempt it deserves.

Speaking during a live Council Meeting, Harare Environmental Management Unit head Mr Lisben Chipfunde said cultivating within 30 meters of the naturally defined banks of a public stream is prohibited under Statutory Instrument 7 of 2007 of the Environmental Management Act Harare.

“No one should do any agriculture activities on land within 30 meters if one is find doing that, Harare city Council will remove the activities happening there,” he said.

“What it means is that all the streams and their tributary which are in Harare or in the Upper Manyame catchment there is no activity that should happen from the naturally defined banks of a stream,” he said.

Four rivers, the Mukuvisi running right through the centre, the Marimba running along the Western Suburbs, the Gwebi in the northern suburbs and the Umwindsi in the northeast suburbs form the basic drainage, but all three have innumerable tributaries which are also defined public streams.

Mr Chipfunde said there has been increased siltation of rivers and the city’s raw water sources, particularly Lake Chivero, Lake Manyame, Harava and Seke are now being filled up by silt coming from land degradation principally from stream bank cultivation.

He also said the use of fertilizer too close to the river was also increasing the pollution load which was actually hindering treatment processes at two of their water treatments works Morton Jaffray and Prince Edward dam water works.

It is possible to obtain permission to plant closer to a stream, but this is never granted to informal land users and requires formal farmers to undertake required earth movements and other measures to prevent silt entering a stream.