Online Reporter
Conrad Mupesa
Features Writer
FOR generations, the vast wilderness surrounding Nyaminyami in Mashonaland West Province has been both a source of livelihood and a battleground for wildlife conservation.
The district, which embraces parts of the Lake Kariba basin and borders Matusadona National Park, is endowed with elephants, buffaloes, lions, leopards, rhinos and a variety of other wildlife.
But for years, that natural wealth also attracted poachers.
Today, however, the sound of gunshots and the setting of snares is increasingly being challenged by a different sound, the whistle of a referee and the roar of young people gathered around football and netball pitches.
At Sampakaruma High School, more than 15 football and netball teams recently converged for the annual Nyaminyami Community Sports and Recreation Club (NCSRC) tournament.
The provincial anti-drugs and substance abuse committee partnered the NCSRC to further strengthen the fight and increase awareness.
The committee also took time to teach schoolchildren about good manners through the Nhanga/Gota sessions.
The tournament, held under the theme “One Goal, One Future: No to Drugs, Protecting Our Wildlife,” has evolved from a sporting event into a community-led campaign against two threats that local leaders say are increasingly intertwined: drug abuse and wildlife crime.
A significant shift for a community whose relationship with wildlife has historically been complicated by poverty, limited livelihood opportunities and human-wildlife conflict.
The scale of Nyaminyami’s historic poaching problem can be traced through the fortunes of Matusadona’s black rhino population.
In the early 1990s, poaching devastated rhino populations across Zimbabwe, and Matusadona was among the hardest-hit areas.
African Parks says only 16 black rhinos remained in Matusadona after the poaching crisis and by 2000, conservation interventions had helped the population recover to about 45 animals, but renewed pressures later saw the numbers decline again.
The last confirmed black rhino in the park was recorded in 2016.
Contemporary reports from the early 1990s paint an even grimmer picture. In 1992, conservationists reported that poachers killed 135 black rhinos in Matusadona over two years, leaving only about 15 survivors.
By 2019, African Parks described Matusadona as a park where rampant poaching had virtually eliminated its black rhino population and severely reduced elephant numbers, amid years of inadequate resources, limited manpower and areas that went unpatrolled.
The situation began changing when conservation organisations, communities and authorities intensified anti-poaching operations.
The Matusadona Anti-Poaching Project, launched in 2013, initially responded to a serious fish-poaching crisis in the eastern basin of Lake Kariba and the Sanyati River system. Its operations later expanded to land-based protection of elephants, rhinos and other wildlife.
By 2019, anti-poaching operations were handed over to African Parks as part of a broader conservation management partnership.
In 2022, anti-poaching units operating in the Nyaminyami area arrested 30 suspected poachers and recovered 15 illegal firearms.
More significantly, authorities reported that there had been no elephant losses to poaching in the area for seven years, with buffalo numbers also showing an improvement after years when sightings became increasingly rare.
In 2024, ZimParks raised concern over illegal fishing in Lake Kariba, particularly within protected areas and authorities said fish poachers had become increasingly daring, with rangers being assaulted and two rangers killed in 2023.
Matusadona’s current management plan also identifies poaching, illegal fishing and gold panning among the illegal activities affecting communities around the park.
While conservationists have been fighting to protect wildlife, Nyaminyami communities are now confronting another challenge, drug and substance abuse, a problem part of a wider national crisis.
Zimbabwe recorded 7 254 offences involving controlled psychoactive substances or other drugs during the first quarter of 2025, according to the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency, representing a rate of 47,8 offences per 100 000 people.
By June 2026, Mashonaland West had recorded 698 drug-related cases since the beginning of the year, with 540 cases having proceeded to court and sentences ranging from 18 months to seven years.
Nationally, 3 193 people were arrested between December 2025 and March 2026, with 2 113 taken to court and 493 convicted.
In Nyaminyami, local leaders say the two problems are sometimes feeding into each other.
Chief Msampakaruma said some youths are turning to illegal hunting for game meat, with proceeds allegedly being used to buy drugs.
“Poaching is contributing to increased cases of drug abuse because it provides income that is often used to purchase drugs. At the same time, people under the influence of drugs recklessly venture into dangerous wildlife areas, putting their lives at risk,” he says.
The chief said youths are illegally hunting species ranging from kudus and buffaloes to wild pigs and elephants.
The result is a dangerous cycle; wildlife crime creates an illegal source of income, while drug abuse can weaken young people’s ability to make responsible choices and expose them to even greater risks.
Against this background, the NCSRC tournament has taken on a much bigger meaning.
Started in 2016, the tournament initially sought to bring communities together through sport while supporting conservation.
In 2024, organisers expanded its mandate to include drug and substance abuse awareness as the problem became more visible in rural communities.
The idea is to take the message to young people where they are.
Rather than waiting for youths to encounter anti-drug messages in classrooms, clinics or Government offices, conservationists and Government officials are meeting them on the football pitch and around the netball court.
Mashonaland West Minister of State for Provincial Affairs and Devolution, Marian Chombo, during this year’s tournament at Sampakaruma High School grounds, said the approach was producing a platform where sport, conservation and youth development converge.
“These tournaments are not only identifying sporting talent but are also raising awareness on drug and substance abuse and wildlife conservation,” she says.
For Matusadona Conservation Trust community development officer, Mr Gilbert Mugwagwa, the campaign has gained added importance following the return of black rhinos to the park.
Matusadona recently welcomed 17 black rhinos, marking the return of a species that had been absent from the park for more than a decade. The animals are descendants of rhinos removed from the area during earlier conservation interventions.
“We recently reintroduced black rhinos into the park, meaning Matusadona is now home to the complete Big Five. The future of these animals depends on peaceful coexistence between wildlife and surrounding communities,” Mr Mugwagwa said.
The return of the rhino, he said, was therefore, more than a conservation milestone.
Rengwe Conservancy operations director, Mr Blessing Masango, says illegal alluvial mining along the Sanyati and Rengwe rivers is worsening environmental degradation.
Siltation threatens the rivers and can contribute to water shortages, potentially pushing wildlife closer to human settlements in search of food and water.
That, in turn, increases the chances of human-wildlife conflict.
He said that for communities living alongside Matusadona conservation was not an abstract environmental issue, but directly connected to food, livelihoods, tourism, safety and the future of their children.
The district has moved from a period when poaching threatened to erase some of its most iconic wildlife to a new phase where community participation is becoming central to conservation.
The challenge now is ensuring that the gains are sustained and, now the same community is attempting to apply that lesson to its young people.
On the football field, the objective has now changed and is no longer simply to win a match but to keep young people away from drugs.
On the conservation front, the objective has shifted from only catching poachers to making communities see wildlife as an asset worth protecting.
Through the Nyaminyami Community Sports and Recreation Club, a football pitch has become a new frontline not against people, but against the circumstances that push young people towards drugs and wildlife crime.
