Resource Grabbing in the Name of Climate Change? The Political Economy of Carbon Markets in Rural Zimbabwe

Abstract

Carbon offsetting has emerged as a key strategy in global climate mitigation, yet its implementation in the Global South often reveals deep tensions between sustainability objectives and local realities. This paper critically examines the political economy of two carbon offset initiatives in Zimbabwe: Kariba REDD+ on communal land and Cicada Holdings on private land. Drawing on fieldwork, including 38 interviews and case study data, the study interrogates how these projects reconfigure land access, governance and livelihoods. While both initiatives deliver tangible benefits such as conservation agriculture, clean cookstoves and alternative incomes, they also produce new forms of exclusion, elite capture and symbolic or ‘in situ’ dispossession. These projects commodify land and ecosystems, entrench state and investor control and marginalise communities through both overt governance failures and subtle shifts in resource access. The paper draws on the concepts of green grabbing, accumulation by dispossession and theories of everyday and rightful resistance to demonstrate how affected communities navigate and contest these dynamics. The paper argues that carbon markets in Zimbabwe are not neutral tools, but they are contested political arenas that risk reproducing colonial and postcolonial inequalities under the guise of climate change mitigation. The findings reflect the need for inclusive governance, secure tenure, gender equity and regulatory coherence in designing equitable and sustainable carbon offset interventions.