Mutare, Zimbabwe – New homesteads cling to the slopes of Zimbabwe’s Eastern Highlands, a fertile mountain region that has become a destination for people fleeing drought-stricken parts of the country.

Many arrived hoping to rebuild their lives on land where crops can still grow. Now they fear they could be forced out as the government intensifies a crackdown on illegal settlements.

Known officially as “illegal settlers” and sometimes derisively as “squatters”, many say they moved here because increasingly erratic rainfall and recurring droughts had made farming difficult in their home areas.

Stretching about 320 km from Nyanga to Chipinge district along the Zimbabwe-Mozambique border, the Eastern Highlands remain one of Zimbabwe’s most fertile regions.

With reliable rainfall, rich soils and an abundance of perennial rivers, the area has become a magnet for thousands of people fleeing increasingly harsh climatic conditions in Zimbabwe’s dry lowlands.

A harvest of hope

“I came here 18 years ago and have been living here ever since. We don’t have anywhere else to go,” Lloyd Gweshengwe, a migrant living in the Eastern Highlands, told Al Jazeera.

This farming season brought him hope.

“I had a very good maize harvest. I’m expecting several bags of maize, enough to feed my family for the whole year. I will sell the surplus,” said the 43-year-old as he stood beside stacks of harvested maize.

But that sense of food security may not last long.

Government tightens enforcement

At a stakeholder meeting last month in Mutare, Zimbabwe’s Minister of State for Manicaland Provincial Affairs and Devolution, Misheck Mugadza, announced a tougher stance on illegal settlements.

He said he had directed the Zimbabwe Republic Police and the National Prosecuting Authority to intensify arrests and prosecutions of traditional leaders, middlemen and government officials implicated in unlawful land allocations.

“There is zero tolerance for corruption,” Mugadza told the meeting. “The Environmental Management Agency must enforce Environmental Impact Assessment requirements and environmental protection laws in ecologically sensitive areas. Wetlands, riverbanks and forests are not for sale. Traditional leaders must operate strictly within the Traditional Leaders Act and report illegal activities to the relevant authorities.”

The government says the exercise is necessary to restore order in land administration, curb corruption and protect the environment from degradation caused by unplanned settlements.

Climate pressure behind migration

On the ground in Manicaland province, the situation is more complex. Many families facing possible eviction say their relocation was not driven by land speculation, but by worsening climate conditions that have made farming increasingly difficult.

Gweshengwe grew up in Village C in Gutaurare, a parched part of Mutare district that no longer sustains rain-fed crop farming. Like many others, he eventually moved to the wetter Eastern Highlands in search of arable land.

“I’m not yet sure what the government is planning to do, but we are begging it to regularise our settlements,” he said. “The demolition exercises have not yet started in our area, but we are hearing in the news what is happening elsewhere.”

Similarly, Simon Chanakira, 44, Gweshengwe’s neighbour, relocated to the Eastern Highlands from the drought-prone Chitora area in search of a better life.

Independent researcher Trymore Maganga told Al Jazeera that illegal settlements in the Eastern Highlands have become a coping strategy for households affected by climate change, even if they are not a long-term solution.

“These settlements leave long-standing land injustices unaddressed, create legal insecurity for migrants, increase environmental and hazard risks, and often generate social tensions,” he said.

Uncertain future

Human rights lawyer Blessing Nyamaropa told Al Jazeera that Zimbabwe lacks a policy framework specifically addressing climate-induced migration.

“Anyone who occupies land without following due process is regarded as an illegal occupier,” he said. “In most cases, people approach traditional leaders, pay something and are allocated land. Traditional leaders do not have that authority.”

He said some migrants have settled on commercial farms without official permission from the Ministry of Lands.

“It is illegal to occupy state land without a permit, lease or offer letter. The government has been invoking the law to have such people arrested and evicted from that land,” he said.

Despite the legal framework, Nyamaropa said enforcement alone cannot resolve the crisis, calling for greater awareness and structured responses to climate-driven displacement.

“There should be an admission by all stakeholders that we have a challenge. Those affected should approach the relevant government departments so that they can be settled legally,” he said.

For now, Gweshengwe continues tending his fields while waiting for clarity on what comes next.

“We don’t have anywhere else to go,” he said.