IN the last issue of The Patriot I drew the ire of some Communal Areas Management Programme for I ndigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE) advocates and some private hunting operations in the prime game area of the Zambezi escarpment.
They accused me of not appreciating the benefits of the programme to the poor rural communities.
They claim that the programme has turned wildlife from a liability into an asset resulting in a ‘re-awakened’ appreciation of wildlife.
This is despite substantial evidence suggesting that the programme has failed to address human–wildlife conflict.
They argued that rural communities that have participated in the programme have seen the benefits of wildlife compared to subsistence farming and cattle rearing.
The answer here is should communities change their social, cultural and economic structures to meet programme goals?
It should be noted that, the success of wildlife enterprises on private lands was naively assumed by advocates of the CAMPFIRE to be easily transferable to the communal areas.
The main aim was to make wildlife a more viable form of land use than livestock or subsistence agriculture.
However, studies conducted in the communal areas on the comparative socio-economic value of wildlife versus subsistence agriculture or livestock to rural communities have shown that the latter is the most preferred form of land use in achieving household food security.
Cattle have a high value in rural Zimbabwe especially for their draught power for ploughing and planting, provision of manure, transport, milk, meat, hide and horns. Cattle also contribute to household investment and savings.
Additionally, cattle are valued socially and culturally for status, rituals and dowry.
Wildlife as a land use will only result in sustainable rural development if the CAMPFIRE programme is economically, ecologically, and socially viable.
As yet no CAMPFIRE district has demonstrated that the programme is really viable in any of the above categories, let alone all three.
The lack of ownership of wildlife, the unreliable nature of household wildlife dividends and the exclusive and financially focused nature of wildlife schemes under CAMPFIRE such as (trophy hunting) has failed to convince rural communities that wildlife should replace agro-pastoral income generating activities.
While much attention has been directed at Rural District Councils and communities regarding their accountability for revenues generated through CAMPFIRE, little attention has been paid to the accountability of the implementing agencies on their use of donor funds and in fulfilling their mandate to rural communities and in fulfilling their mandate to rural communities.
An interesting study of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) involved in rural development in Zimbabwe revealed that projects undertaken by most of these organisations in the so-called CAMPFIRE areas still suffer from high failure rates, as they fail to reach the intended beneficiaries, although they claim to do so in project documents to donors.
The NGOs have also failed to advocate changes in policies and legislation which could lead to more equitable allocation of resources to the poor.
A lack of coordination and networking exists among NGOs as there are extensive difficulties experienced in achieving sustainability and replicability of their projects, and that the assumption that their activities are innovative is highly debatable.
Zimbabwe’s rural communities are noticeably excluded from national wildlife policy formulation, with neither the capital nor marketing capabilities to attract the kind of foreign exchange brought in by the private safari operating industry.
This is true internationally as well. In 1996, the United Kingdom Overseas Development Agency (UK ODA) held a final consultation on African Wildlife Policy.
While there was much talk of the need for rural community participation in wildlife management, less than 20 percent of the participants were indigenous Africans.
The pro-wildlife lobby in Zimbabwe such as the Zimbabwe Wildlife Society consists predominantly of affluent whites, many of whom are safari operators or private landowners engaged in wildlife enterprises.
These groups have largely dictated Zimbabwe’s wildlife policy pre-independence as well as earned most of the profits brought in by wildlife enterprises.
The wildlife sector despite the advances made in the land reform sector, most institutions in Zimbabwe still have strong colonial structures and cannot respond to new socio economic and cultural demands. We have not found an approach to manage and use natural resources at local level, evaluating natural resources or encouraging people’s participation.
While the ministry responsible for the environment has been quite vocal in its anger about the increasing privatisation of wildlife, it has unsuccessfully tried to formulate a new policy to place controls on private farmers with regard to appropriate licensing and marketing procedures for wildlife and limiting conversion of arable agricultural land.
Many commercial farms had little or no wildlife due to intensive agricultural practices (white settlers killed off most wildlife on the land they appropriated from the indigenous people) but restocked through translocating wildlife from parks like Hwange.
Subsequently, those private lands, particularly those bordering national parks have become formidable competitors to poorly funded state owned national parks, with better marketing capabilities and capital outlay.
The result of such a trend is the valuable foreign exchange which could have benefitted the nation, but now flows into the hands of a few.
The argument used by CAMPFIRE advocates that rural communities would benefit from proceeds of wildlife especially those who bear the cost of problem animals is remote from the daily struggle for survival among Zimbabwe’s rural communities. Adequate access to land and its natural resources for household food security is still at the forefront of their lives.
Documented research reveals that the value of subsistence utilisation of wildlife to indigenous Zimbabweans can be quite high.
For example, in other countries wild animal meat accounts for the highest percentage of meat sold on the markets.
Many African countries are reliant on the foreign exchange brought in by tourism and will continue to shape their policies to reflect the global tourism market.
However, they have yet to genuinely involve these communities to the long term survival of wildlife resources.
However, they have yet to genuinely involve these communities in the consultation and planning processes of conservation programmes.
This new relationship should be entrenched between government officials and communities is fundamental.
In post colonial state Rhodesian conservationists went to villager’s houses to kick the lids of cooking pots to see what meat they were cooking, villagers would be arrested if the meat was from a wild animal-it was very sad.
In the next article I will look at the USAID Policy for assisting lesser developed countries and its role in the CAMPFIRE Programme.