For decades now, some residents of Bulawayo’s peri-urban St Peters suburb have watched the city’s lights flicker from a distance.
With no access to electricity, some community members have relied almost exclusively on firewood for cooking and heating.
Women and children fan out across the area, scavenging for dry branches and fallen logs every morning and in the evening.
“We cook sadza and stew on open fires, even in summer,” said Nomathemba Ncube, a mother of three and a 12-year resident of the suburb.
The lack of power extends beyond the kitchen.
Children study by solar lamps or candlelight, while phones are charged at the homes of their neighbours who have managed to have their houses connected to the national grid
St Peters lies just a few kilometres from Bulawayo’s central business district.
The road leading to the suburb has remained untarred, and in poor condition.
As a result, public transport registered companies were unwilling to service the routes.
Meanwhile, illegal wood poaching has stripped the local landscape, with fines for tree cutting doing little to deter desperate families.
“If we had the resources, we could easily have connected to the grid like some of our community members,” said Gilbert Mpofu, a resident.
“However, we have no choice but to resort to firewod poaching.”
A member of the St Peter’s environment committee Lawrence Tshuma said wood and sand poaching was a big problem in the area.
He said firewood poaching as well as veld fires is causing deforestation in the village since they also depend on firewood.
“The main causes of veld fires at the village are sand poachers who cook in the bush and do not put out the fire and smokers who throw away lit cigarette stubs,” he said.
“Cattle rustlers also start fires so that our cattle go far looking for grass which becomes easy for them to steal.”
Ward 17 councillor Sikhululekile Moyo acknowledged that some residents were in darkness as they had no means to connect to the electricity grid.
“The area has been electrified, but we have several homes that remain in darkness as they have no means to connect to the grid,” Moyo said in an interview.
She acknowledged that is resulting in deforestation as desperate residents’ resort to firewood poaching for household chores, turning the area into a mini-desert.
According to the local authority, the council is intensifying efforts to clamp down on illegal gold mining, sand poaching, and firewood theft-activities that are wreaking havoc on the environment.