Accessibility

People come here to find a permit, a phone number, a form or a job. None of that should depend on being able to see well, use a mouse, or wait for a fast connection. This page says what we have done, what we know is still not right, and how to tell us when something gets in your way.

Last updated: 14 October 2026. This statement applies to forestry.co.zw.

The standard we work to

We aim to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 at Level AA. That is the standard most governments use, and it covers the things that matter in practice: readable text, a site that works without a mouse, alternatives to pictures, and nothing that moves or flashes without your say-so.

What we have done

• Text you can read. Every piece of text was checked against the colour actually painted behind it, including text over photographs, and all of it meets or exceeds the AA contrast minimum. Body text is set at 16 pixels and is pure black on a light background.
• A way past the menu. Pressing Tab on any page offers a “Skip to main content” link, so you do not have to move through the whole navigation on every page.
• Keyboard throughout. Every link, button, form field and control can be reached and operated with a keyboard alone, and whatever is focused is always visibly outlined.
• Pictures have words. Every image carries a text alternative, so a screen reader can describe it. Images that are purely decorative are marked as such and are skipped.
• Nothing moves without a stop button. Image banners can be paused with a visible control. If your device is set to reduce motion, animations and sliding transitions are switched off automatically.
• Headings in order. Each page has one main heading and the levels below it do not skip, so you can move through a page by heading and understand its shape.
• Labelled forms. Every field on every form has a label attached to it, and errors are explained in words rather than by colour alone.
• The map is not the only way. Every office shown on the Contact map is also listed beside it as text, with its address, telephone number and opening hours, and that list can be searched and filtered. You never need to use the map to find an office.
• No sound starts on its own. The video on our landing page is silent, and it does not load at all unless you have accepted cookies.
• It works on a slow connection. Icons are drawn rather than downloaded, and the map is served from our own server rather than fetched in tiles.

What is not right yet

We would rather tell you than have you find out:

• Some PDFs. Reports, forms and newsletters published as PDF files were not all prepared with screen readers in mind, and older ones may not be properly tagged. If you need something from a PDF you cannot read, ask us and we will send it to you in another format.
• The video player. Our landing page video is played by YouTube. Its controls and captions are YouTube’s, not ours, and we cannot change how they behave.
• No independent audit yet. The checks described above were carried out by the development team using automated measurement and manual keyboard testing. The site has not yet been tested by people who use assistive technology day to day. We intend to arrange that.
• Some photographs are still placeholders. A few sections are waiting on final images from the Commission. Their descriptions will be written when the photographs are supplied.

Tell us about a problem

If something on this site is difficult or impossible for you to use, we want to know. It helps if you can tell us the page, what you were trying to do, and what happened — but tell us anyway even if you cannot.

Email info@forestry.co.zw
Telephone +263 242 496 438, Monday to Friday, 08:00 – 17:00
Or write to Forestry Commission House, 1 Orange Grove Drive, Highlands, Harare

We aim to reply within 14 working days. If you need information held on this site in large print, in an accessible document format, or read to you over the telephone, ask and we will arrange it.

How this was assessed

Contrast was measured programmatically across every page type, element by element, against the background actually rendered. Keyboard access, focus order, the skip link, heading structure, image alternatives and form labelling were checked by hand on the landing page, Contact, the College, Licences & Permits and Careers. Reduced-motion behaviour was tested by setting that preference in the browser.

We will review this statement whenever the site changes materially, and at least once a year.