Online Reporter
Ivan Zhakata
Herald Correspondent
NEARLY 100 people have been killed by wild animals in Zimbabwe between 2023 and 2024, highlighting the growing human-wildlife conflict that has prompted Government to launch a new national strategy aimed at reducing fatal encounters while ensuring communities living alongside wildlife benefit from conservation.
The National Human-Wildlife Coexistence Strategy was launched in Harare on Friday as Government seeks to tackle one of the country’s most pressing conservation and rural development challenges.
The framework is designed to reduce conflict between people and wildlife through improved management, stronger community participation and expanded economic opportunities linked to conservation.
Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (Zimparks) Director-General Professor Edson Gandiwa said the scale of the challenge underscored the urgency of the strategy.
“In 2024, we lost 49 people. In 2023, we lost 50 people. What it means is that it is a persistent challenge, with crocodiles accounting for most of the fatalities,” he said.
Prof Gandiwa said increasing wildlife populations, coupled with expanding human settlements, were intensifying competition for land and natural resources, making human-wildlife conflict more frequent.
“We have between 85 000 and 100 000 elephants and the land is not expanding. The human population is also growing and development activities are also growing. What that means is that we need to be adaptive and responsive to ensure that we deliver for our local people,” he said.
He noted that human-elephant conflict had become a regional and global conservation concern, adding that Zimbabwe was positioning itself to lead in developing practical and sustainable solutions.
“These issues are no longer local issues; they are regional and global issues. We need to be adaptive and responsive to ensure that we deliver for our local people,” he said.
Prof Gandiwa said consultations conducted in 12 human-wildlife conflict hotspot districts had informed the strategy, while the revitalisation of the CAMPFIRE programme and greater use of technologies such as artificial intelligence would strengthen wildlife management, improve early warning systems and reduce conflict.
Launching the strategy, Environment, Climate and Wildlife Minister Evelyn Ndlovu, whose speech was read on her behalf by Permanent Secretary Mr Simon Masanga, described the framework as a landmark in Zimbabwe’s conservation journey.
“Human-wildlife conflict remains one of the most pressing conservation and development challenges facing our country. It affects families, undermines livelihoods, threatens food security and, if left unaddressed, can erode public confidence in conservation itself,” she said.
She said Zimbabwe’s rich biodiversity should become a source of prosperity rather than hardship for communities living alongside wildlife.
“As Government, we remain committed to ensuring that no community bears the burden of conservation without sharing fairly in its benefits. True coexistence can only be achieved when conservation delivers tangible improvements in people’s lives,” she said.
Minister Ndlovu said the strategy embraces the biodiversity economy by promoting sustainable enterprises such as community conservancies, nature-based tourism, beekeeping, fisheries and value addition to natural products, enabling communities to derive lasting economic value from the resources they help conserve.
She said the framework is anchored on the Parks and Wildlife Amendment Act and the National Wildlife Policy, both of which place communities at the centre of wildlife conservation through equitable benefit-sharing and the sustainable utilisation of natural resources.
