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Mhondoro Ngezi (Zimbabwe) (AFP)

The logs were arranged in such a way that they were ready to be burnt into charcoal — a fuel that has become a substitute for Zimbabwe’s energy shortages, at a terrible cost to its forests.

“It hurts to see forests decimated like this,” said Chizema, who lives in Mhondoro Ngezi, in the centre of the country, 150 kilometres (90 miles) southwest of Harare.

Some loggers come from as far as Harare, “where we hear there is a big demand for charcoal,” he said.

“We, as elders, try to discourage the practice, but it’s all about money and survival.”

For nearly six months, Zimbabwe has been in the grip of chronic power cuts, sometimes running to 19 hours a day.

The price of cooking gas has increased more than six-fold since the start of the year, placing it beyond the reach of many.

For many lower-income urbanites, firewood and charcoal have become the go-to sources of substitute energy — and rogue logging is the result.

Zimbabwe is losing more than 330,000 hectares (815,000 acres) of forest annually, according to Abednigo Marufu, general manager of the Zimbabwe Forestry Commission.

That’s the equivalent to nearly half a million football pitches.

“Zimbabwe is losing quite a lot of trees and forests… everywhere because there is no electricity and our people need to feed themselves, they need heating in their homes,” he told AFP.

Even so, “agriculture is still the number one driver of deforestation,” he said.

A controversial land reform programme launched in 2000 saw a surge in the loss of forest cover as people cleared land for cultivation.

“Some of them started growing tobacco and cut down trees to use for curing their crop.”

The practice continues, as farmers view wood to be free compared to other options.

– Dilemma –

Authorities are confronted with an enforcement conundrum.

Charcoal production is outlawed in Zimbabwe but it can be imported from neighbouring Mozambique, Zambia and Malawi, with special permits.

But Marufu said no such licences had been issued for over a year, yet Zimbabwe was awash with charcoal.

“How do you then know what charcoal is imported and locally produced?” Marufu asked rhetorically.

A lot of the older indigenous mopani trees have been reduced to stumps. AFP journalists saw numerous darkened patches where the logs had been piled and burnt into charcoal in the forests at Mhondoro-Ngezi.

Best Muchenje has been the district’s forestry officer for the past two years.

“Deforestation was already bad when I came here,” he told AFP.

“But the power crisis has worsened the situation, (and) the mopani tree is a target because it is hard and produces quality charcoal.”

Mopani is one of the country’s iconic indigenous trees that easily survive hot and dry conditions.

The law allows those living in the sparsely populated villages to cut trees for personal use and not for commercial purposes.

– ‘Forests or humans’ –

But for unemployed villagers like Enia Shagini, lack of money forces them to risk being fined or even jailed for cutting down trees for charcoal.

She sells a 50-kilogram (110-pound) bag for the equivalent of less than 50 US cents (40 euro centimes).

“We have children to send to school,” said the mother of three, bemoaning a crackdown on illicit charcoal production which has widely been ignored.

In the capital, charcoal vendors at the Mbare market, just a few minutes’ drive from downtown Harare, display dozens of 50-kilo polythene bags of charcoal for sale.

Prudence Mkonyo claimed she got her charcoal from Nyamapanda, near the border with Mozambique.

“It’s difficult bringing the stuff to Harare,” she said.

“We ferry it on trucks at night but sometimes you have to deal with the police at roadblocks. You need to be prepared to pay them bribes when you get stopped.”

She sold her charcoal at the equivalent of between US$2.50 and US$3.00 a bag, but sales are slow.

People are struggling with unemployment and the country’s worst economic crisis in a decade.

“There isn’t much money going around so business is really bad. Some people are burning discarded plastic soft drink bottles for cooking.”

While the law is clear on production of charcoal, the government is in a dilemma.

“It’s a very complicated issue,” Nqobizitha Ndlovu, newly-appointed minister for the environment and climate change, told AFP.

“We acknowledge the shortage of electricity and that gas is expensive, so wood and charcoal are alternatives. So while we are worried about forests, we also worry about human beings.”

“Elephant populations are going down significantly, except for the Southern African region, and yet the world is trying to teach this very region how to conserve its wildlife,” he said. “Really, the irony.”

As CNN recently reported, Zimbabwean officials are legally capturing elephants in Hwange National Park and shipping them off to China in tiny crates. Elephant experts interviewed by CNN said the highly intelligent and social animals are ill-suited for confinement.

Asked if he was bothered by the possibility that young elephants being traded to zoos and theme park are traumatized by the experience, Ndlovu said it was not a new phenomenon.

New Frontier Data, the authority in data, analytics, and business intelligence for the global cannabis industry, just made public its Zimbabwe hemp and cannabis cultivation study, Hemp Cultivation in Africa: Zimbabwe – A Case Study (2019), presented to the Zimbabwean government in May of 2019, ahead of Zimbabwe’s hemp legalization announcement at Victoria Falls’ New Frontier Data-led InterCannAlliance event.

The study, the second part of a series, examines the risks and opportunities in an emerging Zimbabwe hemp industry. New Frontier Data is looking to partner with other African nations and deliver similar market assessments and implementation studies, fostering responsible practices and clear understanding of potential socioeconomic impacts of hemp and/or cannabis legalization in traditionally agro-based Sub-Saharan economies.

“Agro-based Sub-Saharan nations, many of which, like Zimbabwe, primarily produce tobacco for Chinese consumption, are facing declining demand, which could cripple their economies within the next decade. Leaderships such as that of Zimbabwe are smart to be thinking ahead and exploring other crops presenting minimum transition cost and rising demand,” noted Giadha Aguirre de Carcer, New Frontier Data Founder and CEO. “Hemp cultivation, especially given the explosive demand arising from neighboring European nations, presents a unique opportunity to Zimbabwe and other African nations well positioned to meet such demand cheaper, and possibly faster, than current suppliers from Canada and Latin America.”

Following the New Frontier Data-led InterCannAlliance Africa event in May 2019, Zimbabwe Minister of Justice Ziyambi Ziyambi announced his cabinet’s interest and plan to develop a regulated cannabis framework.

Some key findings from the study include:

• Combined tax revenues from domestic sales and exports over a five-year period could reach nearly $19 million
• Based on prevailing rates of cannabis use, there are more than 1 million consumers in Zimbabwe who collectively spend over $200 million each year on cannabis
• Cannabis and hemp cultivation can reinvigorate the agricultural sector, highway systems, and overall population wellness and healthcare

Learn more about New Frontier Data’s research on the Zimbabwe hemp and cannabis market here: http://newfrontierdata.com/ZimbabweCaseStudy

About New Frontier Data:

New Frontier Data is an independent, technology-driven analytics company specializing in the cannabis industry. It offers vetted data, actionable business intelligence and risk management solutions for investors, operators, researchers and policymakers. New Frontier Data’s reports and data have been cited in over 80 countries around the world to inform industry leaders. Founded in 2014, New Frontier Data is headquartered in Washington, D.C., with additional offices in Denver, CO, and London, UK.

New Frontier Data does not take a position on the merits of cannabis legalization. Rather, its mission and mandate are to inform cannabis-related policy and business decisions through rigorous, issue-neutral and comprehensive analysis of the legal cannabis industry worldwide. For more information about New Frontier Data, please visit: https://www.NewFrontierData.com

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20191125005865/en/

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Findings from the 12th Annual Law Department Operations Survey

Findings from the 12th Annual Law Department Operations Survey

BLICKSTEIN GROUP & ABOVE THE LAW

(You’re pretty close to convincing me to amend the Sixth Amendment so that it provides for an impartial jury OF WOMEN.)

A child of the ’90s, I always wanted to be an attorney, likely as a result of my exposure to network television programs. Shows like Ally McBeal, L.A. Law and, of course, Law and Order, made being a lawyer look suspenseful, profitable, and even glamorous. High-rise offices, mysterious fact patterns, and intraoffice love affairs were enough to get me to commit to the answer of “lawyer” when asked what I wanted to be when I grew up.

Honestly, at the time, I had little idea as to what being a lawyer entailed. Growing up, I did not know any lawyers. My parents were schoolteachers, and my friends’ parents were police officers, fire fighters, and small-business owners. To me, becoming a lawyer — that was making it big. That was the ultimate sign of success.

As a child, I saw television portray attorneys as successful individuals, comfortably compensated, and always busy. The prime-time episodes did not show the grittiness of lawyering, the exhausting law school experience, the excessive student loans, the mundane internships, or the employer frustrations. Yet despite now having witnessed the grave differences between real life and fiction, I could not imagine having any other career.

This past week, I had the privilege of returning to my high school to speak to the senior public-speaking class regarding my career path. The class, filled with ambitious students reminiscent of my own classmates, seemed honestly interested in my law career. Many of them stated confidently that they wanted to become lawyers. Niceties aside, they asked pertinent questions about which cases I found interesting, how I was trained, and, of course, how I was paid. What  interested me the most were their specific desires to practice in specific fields including divorce, criminal defense and personal injury (sadly none stated elder law or trusts and estates).

I questioned the students who had expressed their desire to become attorneys. I wanted to know why they had chosen the field and why, at the age of 17, before any college coursework, they were so convinced that it was right for them. The consensus was that being a lawyer was deemed a good job and one that presented itself as stable and successful. Interestingly none of the students were able to specifically tell me what being a lawyer entailed. The day–to–day of lawyering was unknown. I explained that sometimes I write, sometimes I argue, and often I meet with clients and try to problem solve.

Without a doubt, stories of litigation entertained the students and promoted many questions. The drafting and research, not so much. In speaking about my educational path, I noted that I had always wanted to become a lawyer but had also loved theater, which became my undergraduate major and also the subject of a graduate degree before law school. Although I took a break from my childhood plans, I eventually returned to them and went to law school. Speaking with the students made me think about why. It was not easy to go to law school. I had a young family, I had a baby, I had loans, and I had other responsibilities. In thinking about it, the answer I came to was simple and in many ways the same as it was when I was in high school.

To me, being an attorney means being educated. The law requires that you learn how to write, something I emphasized to the students. It provides a method for thinking and analyzing. You may not always like the legal subject that you are studying, but being a lawyer gives you a path to attack the subject. The education promises success -– at some level — and a membership in an exclusive club. A legal education leaves you more intelligent, more worldly, and , hopefully, compensated.

One student commented that I seemed happy with my career choice. And I am. Part of that goes to the fact that I work for myself, I set my own expectations, and I control what I do. The other part is reminiscent of my childhood goals, and I cannot explain who or what or why I lawyer, except that for me it represents the gold standard in education and, with that, the embodiment of success.

Cori A. Robinson is a solo practitioner having founded Cori A. Robinson PLLC, a New York and New Jersey law firm, in 2017. For more than a decade Cori has focused her law practice on trusts and estates and elder law including estate and Medicaid planning, probate and administration, estate litigation, and guardianships. She can be reached at cori@robinsonestatelaw.com. 

Last week, I wrote about the use of keyword search terms and whether they are, or should be, the preferred means to identify documents and information relevant in discovery.

Since it does not make a whole lot of sense to present a problem without also presenting a solution — at least that’s what one of my managers suggested to me early in my career — I thought it would be appropriate to review some of the alternatives to the use of search terms.

Whether you like it or not, artificial intelligence is entering our lives in ways that many of us could never have imagined. Digital marketing and promotion, the diagnosis of serious medical conditions, and autonomous vehicles are a few of the more glaring examples.

When the Federal Rules were written 80 years ago, did anyone ever consider that AI or machine learning would be used in the legal industry to predict the outcome of a legal case, to compare documents in multibillion-dollar business deals, or to identify documents and information in discovery?

That day has arrived. Whether or not you subscribe to the idea that machine learning is a form of AI, the fact remains that today we are able to parse the text of millions of documents in a fraction of the time — and a fraction of the cost — it took just 20 years ago.

The problem, it seems, is that many view predictive technologies like machine learning as unknown, unproven, imprecise, or incomplete. It’s the “black box” that either frightens or intimidates users. Some also say an inherent bias skews results one way or another.

The truth is that text is just text, words are just words, characters just characters. We put characters and words in documents all the time. We use the same characters and words over and over. There’s a lot of repetition, and, yes, some words are more meaningful, but regardless, patterns begin to emerge, and meaning can be derived, if not specifically, certainly conceptually.

Depending upon which dictionary you use, English has about 250,000 words in use. All of these words together take up about 500 pages of text, or, for the more data-minded readers, about 1 MB of data. It should not surprise anyone that we have figured out how to index, analyze, and categorize this relatively small number of words.

In case you did not see it coming, when it comes to machine learning and predictive technologies to identify relevant documents in discovery, it helps to think about it as something akin to advanced search techniques. We’re not talking about robots reading documents or any of the neural or deep-learning or theories of artificial general intelligence. We’re not yet to the point where machines, least of all in the legal industry, are reasoning and learning on their own. We’re basically talking about search terms on steroids.

So next time your legal technology project manager, your e-discovery expert or data scientist suggests that you use machine learning or TAR (or whatever we’re calling it that day), don’t worry so much about the black box; focus instead on what you’re trying to learn from the documents. The available tools can get you there faster, cheaper, and just as accurately.

Mike Quartararo

Mike Quartararo is the President of the Association of Certified E-Discovery Specialists (ACEDS), a professional member association providing training and certification in e-discovery. He is also the author of the 2016 book Project Management in Electronic Discovery and a consultant providing e-discovery, project management and legal technology advisory and training services to law firms and Fortune 500 corporations across the globe. You can reach him via email at mquartararo@aceds.org. Follow him on Twitter @mikequartararo.

As we sit down for Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, one thing guaranteed to be on the menu almost as much as turkey is impeachment talk. If you’re a lawyer or law student, expect the non-lawyers in the family to turn to you for your expert opinion on this important subject. Whether they’ll agree with or defer to you is another story, of course — but you’ll certainly be asked.

If you’d like to field questions about impeachment in an intelligent and informed way, then I have a book recommendation for you: Impeach: The Case Against Donald Trump, by Neal Katyal. Longtime Above the Law readers know Katyal as the former Acting Solicitor General of the United States, current Hogan Lovells partner and Georgetown law professor, and leading Supreme Court and appellate advocate (with more SCOTUS arguments than any other minority group lawyer in U.S. history). Now he has a new title: Author.

Whether you agree or disagree with Katyal’s bottom line, Impeach is well worth your time: Cogent, clear, comprehensive, and concise. And it’s especially impressive considering that Katyal wrote it in under two weeks, which explains how he’s able to tackle a subject that’s still unfolding in real time.

I spoke with Neal this past Friday about the book, the impeachment process, and other Trump-related topics — such as whether the Supreme Court will tackle the issue of access to Trump’s tax records. Here’s a (lightly edited and condensed) write-up of our conversation.

DL: Before we turn to substance, let’s talk process — how quickly this book came together. You’re writing about developments that took place weeks or even days ago. Can you start by telling us about the genesis of the project?

NK: On October 4, about six weeks ago, I was at dinner in D.C. with friends, including Howard Yoon, a book agent. The month before, I had written, with George Conway, an op-ed about the Ukraine allegations for the Washington Post that said, in essence, “This is a big deal — and impeachment proceedings will happen.” I got lots of pushback on that prediction, but by October 3, it was clear I was right.

With the Mueller investigation, I did some television — even though television is not my thing, as a Supreme Court lawyer — in the hope that it could change the debate. It didn’t quite work out that way. So after the Ukraine news broke, I wondered: What could I do this time around that might be more effective?

Howard said, “You won’t want to hear this, but you should really write a book.” I told him, no way, it’s October 4, impeachment proceedings will begin in a month. But Howard insisted I could do it.

Lying in bed that night, I thought to myself: “I can totally do this.” I woke up and started to bang out a proposal. I needed a collaborator, so the next day I called Sam Koppelman and asked if he’d work with me. He said yes. I knew him because earlier this year, I got a call from Dean Gerken at our alma mater [Yale Law School], asking me to give the commencement address. I was, needless to say, freaked out. I showed a draft of the speech to my good friend Brian Koppelman, who suggested that I show it to his son Sam. Sam worked with me to revise that speech, and he did a beautiful job. He was the first and only call I made to seek out a collaborator.

DL: So what was your timeframe, in terms of how quickly you wrote the proposal, how quickly you wrote the book, and how quickly it went to press?

NK: The dinner was on Friday, October 4. We sent out the proposal early the following week, around Monday the 7th or Tuesday the 8th, and said we’d pick a publisher based on who could do it most quickly. Houghton said they could do it very fast, really wanted to publish it, and could commit to having it on shelves by November 26, so we went with them.

We promised them the manuscript by October 25 and actually submitted it within nine days, a week ahead of the October 25 deadline. It’s on trucks right now, being delivered to bookstores.

DL: Conveniently right before Thanksgiving.

NK: Thanksgiving is the traditional time for sitting down with extended family, many of whom you might not agree with politically, and talking about fundamental questions. On my website, you can download Thanksgiving “impeachmats” — placements inspired by the book that are designed to guide civil discussion about impeachment.

Neal Katyal (courtesy of the author)

DL: You make a strong argument in favor of impeachment as opposed to waiting for the 2020 election. But are you at all concerned that a failed impeachment could actually strengthen Trump’s reelection prospects?

NK: I can see arguments both ways on the politics. The reason I wrote this book is because in this country, both the left and the right have cared too much about politics and not enough about our fundamental values. If you told me that impeachment was guaranteed to fail and to reelect Trump, I would say we still have to do it — even though I view Trump as an existential threat to our democracy. We have to stand for something. This is about who we are as a country.

DL: And are you worried about the possible weaponization of impeachment, such that we’ll go through “impeachment” pretty much every time the White House and Congress are controlled by different parties?

NK: Trump’s conduct is the core of what impeachment is about. It doesn’t matter where you’re coming from politically. The central argument of the book is to ask readers to think like law students, and reverse the identity of the parties. Republicans should ask themselves: What if Obama did what Trump is accused of doing? If you don’t impeach for this, you’ve read these clauses out of the Constitution altogether.

I do worry about impeachment becoming a regular event. But this is why the constitutional standard, “high crimes and misdemeanors,” is as high as it is. It’s not for maladministration or policies you don’t like.

So, for example, I’m as distraught as anyone in the country about Trump’s policies regarding child separation, but I don’t think they are an impeachable offense. It might be a grotesque violation of human rights, but it is not impeachable conduct.

For lawyers, think about fiduciary duty, putting your client’s interests ahead of your own personal ones. That’s how the Founders thought about the presidency: That the president has a fiduciary duty to put the people first. When the president violates that duty by trying to get personal help for his reelection from a foreign government, that’s core impeachment.

DL: Your book is prescriptive and normative; let’s turn to the predictive. How do you think this will all shake out? You point out that most Republicans and a sizable portion of the public opposed the impeachment of Nixon for a long time, and then his support collapsed in a matter of weeks. But do you think that can happen today, a much more polarized time?

NK: I do think it can happen today. Pundits consistently underestimate the American people and members of Congress.

I’m sick of the soft bigotry of low expectations when it comes to the American people. There have been so many times in our history when people said something couldn’t be done, and it got done. So I am optimistic that Trump will end up leaving office, whether through resignation or a formal vote.

DL: One of your proposed reforms is to pass a federal law requiring presidents and presidential candidates to release their tax returns before the election. The issue of access to Trump’s tax records — albeit in a different context, in terms of requests for them by a House committee and by Manhattan prosecutors — has now been decided by two circuit courts.

You’re an expert on the Supreme Court as well as impeachment. Any prediction as to whether the Court will agree to decide this issue and, if so, what the Court will rule?

NK: I think the Court is perhaps unlikely to hear these cases. When the president asks the Court to hear a case, generally they do — but there are a few things going on here that make it less likely than usual.

We’re in an election year, and this president hasn’t hesitated to declare war on the Court when he loses. So there will be some inclination among the justices to say, “Let’s not get into this.”

The arguments by Trump are just frankly bad, the court of appeals decisions are both narrow, and they both pretty much demolish the Trump arguments. So I could see the justices basically saying they are comfortable with where things wound up.

DL: Anything to share in closing, about the book or about impeachment?

NK: Impeachment is a hybrid animal, rooted in both politics and law. So much of the daily discourse is about politics; I wrote the book to focus on law.

We need to put the law back into impeachment discussions. We need to reflect on what it would do to our government if our commander in chief can go and get secret help for his reelection campaign from a foreign government. It’s not about whether this helps Pelosi or Schiff or Buttigieg, it’s about what this means for our country. This is why I hope people read the book.

DL: And read it they shall. Congrats again on the book, Neal, and thanks for taking the time to chat!

Impeach: The Case Against Donald Trump [Amazon (affiliate link)]

David Lat, the founding editor of Above the Law, is a writer, speaker, and legal recruiter at Lateral Link, where he is a managing director in the New York office. David’s book, Supreme Ambitions: A Novel (2014), was described by the New York Times as “the most buzzed-about novel of the year” among legal elites. David previously worked as a federal prosecutor, a litigation associate at Wachtell Lipton, and a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. You can connect with David on Twitter (@DavidLat), LinkedIn, and Facebook, and you can reach him by email at dlat@laterallink.com.