53 



The first point refers to foreign aid provided by the US through the USAID. As is so often the 

 case with innovative approaches, CAMPFERE began as an idea with no resources, little political 

 and financial support and many sceptics. As the programme began to evolve, it increasingly 

 attracted the attention of both Government officials and international aid agencies. The 

 institutional developmem and financial support provided by USAID during the pilot stage of this 

 programme proved to be a critical factor in demonstrating the viability of linking conservation 

 and development objectives through the use of wild species. 



The need for such foreign assistance will continue for a number of years as the programme seeks 

 to develop the institutional and economic basis for community based management of natural 

 resources across the country. The complexity of seeking to transform key elements of a rural 

 economy's established production systems should not be underestimated. It requires a substantive 

 investment in institutions, capacities and infiiistructure, the costs of which cannot be borne by the 

 communities alone. 



However, in the long run trade, both domestic and international, will determine the fiiture of the 

 programme. CAMPFIRE depends upon obtaining an economic return from wild resources, which 

 in turn requires open and ilinctional markets for these products To demonstrate the impact of 

 international trade policies upon local initiatives of this kind, consider the following example. 



Over the last few years there have been two instances where actions were ahnost taken by the 

 Secretary of the Interior under the ESA legislation, which would have efifectively prohibited the 

 import of ivory trophies CAMPFIRE is highly dependent upon trophy hunting for generating 

 cash revenues for its communities, as demonstrated by the following figures: 



• Trophy hunting provides over 90% of the cash revenue. 



• Elephant hunting alone provides 64% of the cash revenue 



• The US makes up over 60% of this market. 



I&nters fi-om the US would have been prohibited fi'om importing hunted trophies; this would 

 have resulted in lost revenues to communities, loss of benefits would have reduced the incentives 

 for conserving the resource; other land use options would have been selected resuhing in 

 environmental degradation in these marginal environments. 



The threat implied by the ES A's regulations and the implications this has for the authority of 

 Southern Afiican governments in managing their own resources is taken extremely seriously by 

 these governments Diplomatic protests have been received by the Chairman of the Resource 

 Committee fi-om both the Washington based Ambassadors and the Directors of National Parks 

 Departments in Botswana, Namibia, Malawi and Zimbabwe, expressing their countries 

 reservations with existing legislation and suggesting revisions to those sections of the Act which 

 apply to foreign species. They indicated that in the eyes of these governments the determinations 

 made under the Endangered Species Act regarding non-US species: 



