59 



issues are best handled with the participation of all citizens at the relevant level and to 

 Principle 12 and the new Subsidiary Principle which require that political decisions be taken 

 at the lowest possible level; thus requiring popular participation and ensuring that local 

 interests are articulated and incorporated into the decision-making process. CAMPFIRE is 

 thus a model applying the Rio Declaration Principles, the Convention on Biodiversity 

 Articles and the Principles that form the international environmental policy, in particular the 

 Subsidiary Principle. 



CAMPFIRE, and other CBNRM programs throughout Southern Africa, recognize the 

 following key points as fundamental to the sustainable management of the natural resource 

 base: 



• Those who can best manage the wildlife resource are those people who live with it 

 on a daily basis 



• The conservation of wild species and habitat will only be successful in the long run if 

 it is 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 wildlife 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. 



EFFECTS OF CAMPFIRE ANP RELATED PRO.IECTS 



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 

 similar 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 presented 

 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 fast as possible in any way they can, legal or 

 otherwise. 



