8. Ecological Risks of the Postcolonial City: Experiences from Harare, Zimbabwe

The human ecosystems model is used to explore the human impact on urban ecosystems in Harare. The chapter explores several questions: What are the urban ecological risks in the postcolonial city? How do residents perceive urban ecosystems? How do politics and urban governance systems exist to regulate or manage the relationships between humans and urban ecosystems? The chapter reveals that urban ecosystems are complex and fragile spaces that face multiple stressors associated with increasing urbanisation. The nature and characteristics of the urbanisation process have resulted in degradation, downsizing or loss of open spaces and protected areas such as wetlands and public parks. Land and water resources are increasingly polluted due to the dumping of solid waste and the run-off of chemicals and fertilisers from urban agriculture. The continued degradation of the environment is deeply disturbing and challenges the notion of stewardship of the environment where communities value ecosystem services and, hence, act as good stewards of their environment. Furthermore, political ecology features in the urban ecology literature and influences environmental sustainability together with unclear and overlapping statutes and governing institutions, or gross neglect of the legislation on the urban environment.