Mbire villagers harvest wildlife

teeming wildlife and vast expanse of salt pans.
Even historically Mbire has the single distinction of making the great conqueror Munhumutapa abandon his all-important ancient city at Great Zimbabwe in Masvingo and move north to conquer Mbire’s salt pans.

In Shona tradition, song after song has been penned based on Mbire:
“Kuenda Mbire hauchadzoka . . .
Waenda Mbire hauchadzoka . . .
Kuenda Mbire, kuenda Mbire, waenda chose . . .

Waenda Mbire baba vevana waenda Mbire!”
What inspired the song was the teeming predators like lions and hyenas that fed on human beings who dared embark on the long journey through the wilderness to the salt pans.

Munhumutapa himself died at Tuwuyu Tusere (the eight baobabs) near Negomo School in what is today Mutota Ward, while on his way to Mbire.
However, Munhumutapa died of natural cause and not by being mauled by marauding lions.

Salt is a crucial component of Zimbabwe’s diet and Mbire has a type of grass, which is harvested exclusively by women past their menopause, and deftly prepared into salt.
But modern-day Mbire has the distinction of being the most organised rural community in Zimbabwe still operating communally.

They have communal bank accounts, schools, vehicles, tractors, grinding mills and theatre, courtesy of the Community Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources.
Under this project, villagers market wildlife: lions, elephants, buffalo and others to foreign and local hunters, through a quota allocated by National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority and share the proceeds.

At the end of each year, the villagers sit down and decide what to do with the money.
The villagers have become so organised that over the past 15 years, they have built five schools in Gonono and Kanyemba. They have built a lodge, a clinic at Masoka, bought five grinding mills and three tractors for Masoka, Kanyemba and Angwa areas for tillage and transportation.

They have also bought two Mazda T35 trucks for far away communities in Kanyemba and Masoka.
Recently they bought another tractor for Chivaraidze Game Range in Gonono.

The villagers buy grain with Campfire proceeds, from other districts and share among themselves, since their area is drought prone.
The latest development is that they have bought a grader and road maintenance equipment and are now able to maintain their roads. They also have a communal butchery, where they sale game meat and biltong.

The villagers pay school fees for several orphaned and disadvantaged children and assist on funerals of people killed by wild animals.
Mbire Rural District council chairman Mr Dhoro Koni said the community remains united towards developing itself rather than wait for the Government to do everything.

“We have wildlife as a major resource and have managed over the years to utilise this resource as a community.
“We have benefited a lot from this resource through Campfire and we continue to look at new ways of gaining from the resource. We believe we are among the most organised communities outside Government circles,” he said.

Mr Koni said the Campfire Association only gets 5 percent of the total annual revenue from the council, which manages the funds before they are transferred to the villager’s bank accounts.
Campfire allows the council, in line with its constitution to clinch hunting deal with safari operators, on behalf of the villagers.

Mr Koni said in the past the hunters would get the lion’s share but in 2001 the local authority successfully negotiated with safari operators to give more to the villagers. He is also the finance chairperson of the Campfire Association of Zimbabwe.

Mbire’s cash cow is based on wildlife resources and there are fears of dwindling of the resources.
The benefit from wildlife has made villagers hypersensitive to poaching as they know that this is their livelihood.