daniel chigunwe
Charles Jonga
Correspondent
Where others have been preaching environmental conservation, the Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE) has been practicing it.
With its aim to promote natural resources utilisation, including wildlife, as an economic and sustainable land-use option, this rural development programme operates on the basic philosophy of returning the management of wildlife and other resources to the local inhabitants.
The programme started in 1989 in two districts — Nyaminyami in Mashonaland West Province and Guruve in Mashonaland Central Province and has now spread to 58 out of 60 districts in the country involving over 800 000 households.
The programme helps to protect some 50 000 square kilometres of wildlife habitat in communal areas.
Recent news reports of four lions terrorising villagers in Tsholotsho have once again heightened questions about the effectiveness and impact of CAMPFIRE, and raised doubts as to whether this once world acclaimed example of community-based natural resources management is still benefiting rural communities.
Poaching of natural resources ranging from tree cutting, river sand, pit sand, gravel, wildlife for meat especially in the parks and forestry areas, are evident as rural people try to cope with the challenges of COVID-19.
Human populations have more than doubled in most CAMPFIRE areas since the programme started.
There is human encroachment into wildlife areas in some districts in pursuit of other livelihood options, such as gold panning and tobacco farming.
In Mbire district alone, for example, two people were killed by elephants, while one died from a snake bite, and yet another was reportedly killed by a hippo, making a total of four victims since January this year.
Scores of people have been killed or injured during the same period at national level, accompanied by huge crops and livestock losses.
However, cases of wildlife attacks also occur in urban settlements such as Kariba, and areas surrounding private conservancies and communal areas that fall outside the operational areas of the CAMPFIRE programme, which compounds the extent of the problem.
Examples of such cases include deaths and injuries of both people and livestock from species such as crocodile and hyena that often occur in the most unlikely parts of the country.
This imposes a huge burden on the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (ZimParks), which is the authority responsible for the management of wildlife at national level.
The situation is also challenging for those Rural District Councils (RDCs) implementing CAMPFIRE.
People are becoming very bitter and disheartened with problem animals.
For more than 20 years, Shupa Muchimba of Sakabinga Village in Ward 4 of Binga district, has watched helplessly as predators killed his cattle and elephants destroyed his maize and cotton crops.
“Sometimes, we went for days on end without food,” said Muchimba.
“In years of drought, we would walk for 15 kilometres to access water at the nearest water point,’’ added Muchimba.
Today, a village borehole is only 500 metres away, thanks to one that has been constructed through the Sustainable Wildlife Management (SWM) project in appreciation of the community’s renewed wildlife conservation efforts.
Through sustainable wildlife management programmes, such as CAMPFIRE, Zimbabwe has grown its elephant population, to a level where at 84 000 elephants, it now hosts the second largest elephant population in the world after Botswana. While the populations remain high human elephant conflict has also been on the rise.
Since the late 1980s, up to 36 RDCs have been granted Appropriate Authority (AA) for the management of wildlife. At least 12 of these districts share boundaries with the country’s national parks.
It is in these districts such as Mbire in Mashonaland Central Province and Tsholotsho in Matabeleland North Province that wildlife has become both a blessing and a curse to the communities that share their land with wildlife.
Currently, ZimParks monitors all hunts conducted by safari operators in CAMPFIRE areas as much as it does on private land, with the exception of plains game hunts.
This has resulted in the equivalent of at least US$1 million being generated annually for the direct benefit of around 200 000 households within CAMPFIRE districts prior to the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
This income has also had a multiplier effect on the livelihoods of an additional 600 000 households nearest to these communities who have also benefited from improved social infrastructure such as education and health, and water supply facilities funded from wildlife revenue.
This income has all, but dried up post 2019 as COVID-19-induced shocks take a toll on both safari hunting and photographic tourism enterprises under CAMPFIRE.
Community projects usually funded from wildlife income are at a standstill. Wildlife monitoring activities in these districts have equally been negatively impacted, and game scout patrols remain under-funded.
While at local level reporting systems for incidents of problem animals are clear, blame is often wrongly apportioned on ZimParks, even for cases occurring within active CAMPFIRE districts, when action to minimise losses is delayed or not taken at all.
Under CAMPFIRE, ZimParks assistance is hired in exceptional cases where RDC game scouts are unable to deal with a particular situation.
Where an RDC has capacity to contain the situation, scaring methods are used.
However, if lethal action is absolutely necessary, this is done subject to a permit from Parks and must be conducted by a licensed professional hunter within the district.
Currently, five districts under CAMPFIRE and within Zimbabwe’s component of the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA) are benefiting from a COVID-19 Response Package project supported through the KAZA TFCA Secretariat.
The project is providing for food rations, camping equipment, and patrol allowances to 67 game scouts in Binga, Bulilima, Hwange, Nyaminyami, and Tsholotsho districts.
Nearly 50 000 people are benefiting from the completion of community level social infrastructure projects such as clinics and staff accommodation, provision of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), cash payments to communities for food-for-work and income generating projects, agricultural inputs support, provision of solar power for water supplies, fish farming, and cattle dipping chemicals.
Three other districts, Hurungwe, Mbire, and Muzarabani have communities and a total of 102 rangers also receiving similar support under the on-going Ministry of Environment led GEF/UNDP Zambezi Valley Biodiversity Project.
However, to revamp the CAMPFIRE initiative to ensure that rural communities attain maximum benefits from the management of natural resources in their areas, the government is now finalising modalities to empower producer communities in deciding on how best they can manage the natural resources sustainably to attain maximum benefits.
In addition, and in an effort to improve efficiency and transparency in this programme, government is also producing CAMPFIRE regulations that will guide all stakeholders involved in the programme.
Charles Jonga is the Director of CAMPFIRE Association. You can contact him at [email protected].
Online Reporter