Land Without Order: Customary Authority, Conservation, And the Crisis of Rural Governance in Post-FTLRP Debshan Ranches, Matabeleland South, Zimbabwe

This article critically examines the institutional disorder unfolding in Debshan Ranches, Insiza North, following Zimbabwe’s Fast-Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP). It highlights how traditional leaders, private conservancies, and newly resettled farmers each lay claim to authority over land, leading to overlapping jurisdictions, enforcement dilemmas, and resource access conflicts. Drawing on interviews, participatory mapping, and policy analysis, the study illustrates how the erosion of customary legitimacy—coupled with unaccountable conservation partnerships—has deepened rural land-use instability. The article advocates for the formal recognition of traditional leadership structures in land governance frameworks and stresses the need for equitable co-management models to reconcile livelihood strategies and ecological objectives through orderly land management.