51 



able to generate revenue - if it is an economically competitive form of land use. 



• To make wildlife economically competitive. Governments and conservation organizations 

 need to begin to promote harvesting and using wild species as an option for w^dlife 

 conservation, rather than focusing exclusively on the old protectionist conservation 

 paradigm which prevented such uses. 



• If wildlife is to become an economically viable form of land use it will be dependent upon 

 the availability of markets for wildlife products, these markets depend on policy and 

 regulation both at the international level and within some consumer nations, such as the 

 Endangered Species Act in the US. 



CAMPFIRE AND RELATED PROJECTS 



It is our experience in Africa that conservation and development are both most effectively 

 achieved when the goals of each contribute towards the other. CAMPFIRE and other gimtlar 

 initiatives are attempts to achieve this by ensuring that wildlife management becomes an accepted 

 land use practice in areas that are marginal for other forms of land use. 



Until recently all use of wildlife was illegal and referred to as poaching. Thus wildlife was of no 

 legal use but was a very real pest which could destroy livelihoods overnight and presemed a 

 serious threat to human lives Each year thousands of people in Zimbabwe lose their entire year's 

 income, in the form of their crops, to marauding wild animals, often resulting in starvation. 

 Hundreds of people are killed or maimed, usually by elephant, hippo or buffalo. In this context 

 rural communities have been given strong incentives to get rid of wildlife, and to change the 

 habitat that sustains it, as &st as possible in any way they can, legal or otherwise. 



The advent of CAMPFIRE has reversed this situation by transforming wildlife, the liability, into 

 wildlife the important economic asset. To succeed, CAMPFIRE has introduced legislation which 

 efiFectively devolves ownership of wildlife to local communities. For the first time in recent 

 history, wildlife management has the potential to become a competitive form of land use for the 

 local communities who live with it. Wildlife is now viewed as a valuable resource, which should 

 be managed, nurtured and utilised in the same manner in which a farmer previously managed his 

 cattle. Wildlife has a comparative advantage to cattle on semi-arid rangelands as it makes wider 

 and better use of the available vegetation and has many marketable uses in addition to meat 

 production. Conservative estimates indicate that wildlife utilization produces returns of at least 

 double those produced from livestock ranching on marginal lands, approximately S0% of the land 

 area of Zimbabwe. 



By linking conservation benefits with development objectives, habitat destruction and degradation 

 has been reversed in Zimbabwe. CAMPFIRE started in 1989 when 2 districts received authority 

 to manage their wildlife. The fact that by 1 993, 22 districts had joined the programme, 

 approximately one third of all the districts in the country, speaks for itself A similar situation has 

 occurred in the commercial farmuig sector Today, more than 7S'/o of the privately owned ranches 

 in 2^babwe have integrated wildhfe management practices into their overall land use strategy 

 and thus derive additional income from wildlife. In the S£ Low veldt a consortiimi of 22 



