Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources

Last updated

The Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE) is a Zimbabwean community-based natural resource management program. It is one of the first programs to consider wildlife as renewable natural resources, while addressing the allocation of its ownership to indigenous peoples in and around conservation protected areas. [1]

Contents

Background

CAMPFIRE was initiated in 1989 by the Zimbabwean government as a program to support community-led development and sustainable use of natural resources. [2] The 1975 Parks and Wildlife Act set the legal basis for CAMPFIRE by allowing communities and private landowners to use wildlife on their land, marking a substantial shift from colonial policy that made it illegal for local populations to utilize wildlife in any way. [3]

Population pressures in Zimbabwe have led to people living in communal lands, much of which is arid and unsuitable for agricultural farming. [4] CAMPFIRE would allow individuals to earn income on these communal lands through sustainable use of the environment and wildlife. [4] CAMPFIRE is managed through Rural District Councils (RDCs) who distribute contracts for safari hunting and tourism and allocate revenue to local wards. [2] Poaching was to be suppressed by the people in these hunting areas. [5] While some endangered animals were killed, the program aimed at supporting these populations in the long run by managing hunting, decreasing illegal poaching, and strengthening the economic prospects of the community through environmental protection and revenue generation.

The US federal government has supported CAMPFIRE, principally through the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID. CAMPFIRE received $7.6 million initially and $20.5 million in 1994 from USAID. [6] USAID did not renew its funding once their commitment ended in 2000. [6]

Results

CAMPFIRE has been implemented widely across Zimbabwe, encompassing 36 of Zimbabwe's 57 districts. [6] CAMPFIRE earns revenue through safari hunting, the sale of animal products, and tourism contracts. [2] During 1989–2001, CAMPFIRE generated over US$20 million of transfers to the participating communities, with 89% of revenue being generated through safari hunting. [2] Twelve of the 37 districts with authority to market wildlife produced 97% of all CAMPFIRE revenues, reflecting the variability in wildlife resources and local institutional arrangements. [2]

Benefits to Households

While crop and livestock cultivation are more susceptible to drought or irrigation failures, wildlife serves as a more dependable source of income due to their comparative advantage in the environment. [3] The scale of benefits varies greatly across districts, wards and households. Rural district councils typically allocate 40–60% of revenue to wards, either through direct benefits or through funding projects. [7] It has been estimated by the World Wildlife Fund that households participating in CAMPFIRE increased their incomes by 15–25%. [8]

Communities also receive indirect benefits through community projects, such as the construction of schools, clinics, grinding mills, or prospects for additional income through employment as a game monitor or a related job. [7] Depending on wildlife population density, some wards have diversified their revenue streams. For instance, the Mahenye ward had no elephants or large wildlife immediately around its district and opened game-viewing lodges to generate revenue in place of hunting contracts. [9] Wards with higher per household revenue have encouraged immigration in order to increase population density in a way that would warrant the development of roads, schools, and other infrastructure suited for high population densities. [10]

Wildlife and Land Management

Environmental benefits have been witnessed since CAMPFIRE's inception; elephant numbers have increased, buffalo numbers are either stable or witnessing a slight decrease, and habitat loss has diminished, and in certain regions, even reversed. [6] Between 1980 and 2000, wildlife management as a percent of total land in Zimbabwe increased by 21%. [6] Because rural district councils have an incentive to maintain revenue streams, hunting laws are heavily enforced and instances of illegal poaching have decreased. [9]

As a result of CAMPFIRE, wildlife monitoring has increased but remains inconsistent and focused on large species, such as elephants. [6] CAMPFIRE manages wildlife populations by maintaining a certain agreed upon hunting quota; the quotas take both species endangerment and sex ratios into account to maintain wildlife populations, since hunters tend to selectively hunt male animals for sport. [3] CAMPFIRE has experimented with moving wildlife populations to different wards to benefit communities with lower populations and reduce wildlife competition within certain areas. [3]  

Because benefits were clearly linked to wildlife, CAMPFIRE helped to develop positive attitudes surrounding animal conservation; in districts, celebrations around the opening of grinding mills and other community projects would be accompanied by performances with animal costumes. [7] Villagers are more likely to report neighbors for illegal poaching activity. [9] Surveys have found that public awareness campaigns funded by CAMPFIRE revenues have been effective in reducing harmful community behavior, such as indiscriminate tree cutting and damaging fishing techniques. [11]

Criticisms

The sustainability of protecting wildlife is contingent upon market demand for safaris, hunting, and other wildlife commodities. [12] After increased violence around land ownership, investment and tourism decreased, resulting in a decline of revenue generation across wards. [9] Furthermore, CAMPFIRE's model is based on the sustainable consumptive use of endangered species as a strategy to increase the value of their remaining populations. This position clashed with the majority preservationist, anti-hunting public sentiment in the US as well as national and international law, in particular CITES. [13] In 2014 the US stopped the importation of elephants and ivory into the US, halting much of the hunting and revenue carried out in CAMPFIRE communities. [12] More recently, the Trump administration has lifted the US' ban on trophy imports. [14]

Following Zimbabwe's economic downturn in the 2000s, CAMPFIRE experienced a greater degree of elite capture, with villagers reporting that council positions and CAMPFIRE-related employment opportunities being held by friends and family members of sitting councillors. [9] RDCs have retained an increasing percentage of CAMPFIRE revenues and are criticized for being unresponsive to local concerns. [4] In some areas, the communal projects are initiated but are not sustained, while the income from CAMPFIRE revenues is insufficient to substitute agricultural income. [15]

Villagers express concern that wildlife protection supersedes their own safety and livelihood strategies. Some wards have restricted immigration, settlement expansion, and the use of natural resources. [2] Physical restrictions on land expansion bar villagers from accessing more fertile land. [16] Villagers have expressed that wildlife presents safety concerns for themselves, crops, and livestock. [15]

See also

Notes

  1. Satchell 1996.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Frost, Bond; Bond, Ivan (2008). "The CAMPFIRE Programme in Zimbabwe: Payment for Wildlife Services". Ecological Economics. 65 (4): 776–87. doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2007.09.018 via Research Gate.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Vorlaufer, Karl (2002). "CAMPFIRE-The Political Ecology of Poverty Alleviation, Wildlife Utilisation and Biodiversity Conservation in Zimbabwe". Erdkunde. 56 (2): 184–206. doi:10.3112/erdkunde.2002.02.06.
  4. 1 2 3 Murindagomo, Felix (1990). "Zimbabwe: WINDFALL and CAMPFIRE". Living with Wildlife: Resource Management with Local Participation in Africa: 123–140.
  5. Ceballos, G.; Ehrlich, A. H.; Ehrlich, P. R. (2015). The Annihilation of Nature: Human Extinction of Birds and Mammals. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 170 - 172. ISBN   1421417189 - via open edition.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Hasler, Richard. "An Overview of the Social, Ecological and Economic Achievements and Challenges of Zimbabwe's CAMPFIRE programme" (PDF). Evaluating Eden Series Discussion Paper No 3: 1–22.
  7. 1 2 3 Child, Brian (1993). "Zimbabwe's CAMPFIRE programme: using the high value of wildlife recreation to revolutionize natural resource management in communal areas". The Commonwealth Forestry Review. 72 (4): 284–296. JSTOR   42606968.
  8. "American University, Washington, D.C". Archived from the original on 2015-06-12. Retrieved 2014-09-29.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 Balint, Peter (2009). "CAMPFIRE During Zimbabwe's National Crisis: Local Impacts and Broader Implications for Community-Based Wildlife Management". Society and Natural Resources. 21 (9): 783–796. doi:10.1080/08941920701681961. S2CID   153944326.
  10. Murombedzi, James C. (1999). "Devolution and Stewardship in Zimbabwe's Campfire Programme". Journal of International Development. 11 (2): 287–293. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1099-1328(199903/04)11:2<287::AID-JID584>3.0.CO;2-M.
  11. Montana, M. "Environmental awareness and biodiversity conservation among resettled communal farmers in Gwayi Valley Conservation Area, Zimbabwe". International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology. 23: 242–250.
  12. 1 2 "The CAMPFIRE Program in Zimbabwe". 2015-08-18.
  13. Rowe 1997.
  14. Nuwer, Rachel (2018-03-07). "U.S. Lifts Ban on Some Elephant and Lion Trophies". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2019-05-10.
  15. 1 2 Harrison, Elizabeth P. (2015). "Impacts of natural resource management programmes on rural livelihoods in Zimbabwe - the ongoing legacies of CAMPFIRE" (PDF). Pacific Sociological Association Conference: 1–31.
  16. Alexander, Jocelyn (2002). "Wildlife and politics: CAMPFIRE in Zimbabwe". Development and Change. 31 (3): 605–627. doi:10.1111/1467-7660.00169.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Poaching</span> Illegal hunting of wildlife

Poaching is the illegal hunting or capturing of wild animals, usually associated with land use rights. Poaching was once performed by impoverished peasants for subsistence purposes and to supplement meager diets. It was set against the hunting privileges of nobility and territorial rulers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Game reserve</span> Area of land set aside for wild animals

A game reserve is a large area of land where wild animals live safely or are hunted in a controlled way for sport. If hunting is prohibited, a game reserve may be considered a nature reserve; however, the focus of a game reserve is specifically the animals (fauna), whereas a nature reserve is also, if not equally, concerned with all aspects of native biota of the area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority</span>

Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (Zimparks) is an agency of the Zimbabwe government managing national parks. Zimbabwe's game reserves are managed by the government. They were initially founded as a means of using unproductive land.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trophy hunting</span> Hunting of wild animals for trophies

Trophy hunting is a form of hunting for sport in which parts of the hunted wild animals are kept and displayed as trophies. The animal being targeted, known as the "game", is typically a mature male specimen from a popular species of collectable interests, usually of large sizes, holding impressive horns, antlers, furs or manes. Most trophies consist of only select parts of the animal, which are prepared for display by a taxidermist. The parts most commonly kept vary by species, but often include head, hide, tusks, horns, or antlers.

Liwonde National Park, also known as Liwonde Wildlife Reserve, is a national park in southern Malawi, near the Mozambique border. The park was established in 1973, and has been managed by the nonprofit conservation organization African Parks since August 2015. African Parks built an electric fence around the perimeter of the park to help mitigate human-wildlife conflict. In early 2018, the adjacent Mangochi Forest Reserve was also brought under African Parks' management, almost doubling the size of the protected area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Game farm</span>

A game farm is a place where game animals are raised to stock wildlife areas for hunting. The term also includes places where such animals are raised to be sold as food or for photography. Their existence has been exemplified within the South African countryside where they have become prevalent. The wildlife that is hunted is used for consumption as well for ecotourism. Local laws in South Africa during the 20th century have allowed the private ownership of wildlife, which has enabled the expansion and economic feasibility of game farms over typical livestock farming.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Environmental issues in Kenya</span>

Environmental issues in Kenya include deforestation, soil erosion, desertification, water shortage and degraded water quality, flooding, poaching, and domestic and industrial pollution.

Size of Wales is a climate change charity founded with the aim of conserving an area of tropical rainforest the size of Wales. The project currently supports seven forest protection projects and one tree planting project across Africa and South America. The charity focuses upon furthering the promotion of rainforest conservation as a national response to the global issue of climate change.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wildlife tourism</span>

Wildlife tourism is an element of many nations' travel industry centered around observation and interaction with local animal and plant life in their natural habitats. While it can include eco- and animal-friendly tourism, safari hunting and similar high-intervention activities also fall under the umbrella of wildlife tourism. Wildlife tourism, in its simplest sense, is interacting with wild animals in their natural habitat, either by actively or passively. Wildlife tourism is an important part of the tourism industries in many countries including many African and South American countries, Australia, India, Canada, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Maldives among many. It has experienced a dramatic and rapid growth in recent years worldwide and many elements are closely aligned to eco-tourism and sustainable tourism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wildlife of Zimbabwe</span> Native fauna and flora of Zimbabwe

The wildlife of Zimbabwe occurs foremost in remote or rugged terrain, in national parks and private wildlife ranches, in miombo woodlands and thorny acacia or kopje. The prominent wild fauna includes African buffalo, African bush elephant, black rhinoceros, southern giraffe, African leopard, lion, plains zebra, and several antelope species.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kenya Wildlife Service</span>

Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) is a state corporation under the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife established by an act of Parliament; Wildlife Conservation and Management Act CAP 376, of 1989, now repealed and replaced by the Wildlife Conservation and Management Act, 2013. At independence, the Government of Kenya committed itself to conserving wildlife for posterity with all the means at its disposal, including the places animals lived, forests and water catchment areas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Communal wildlife conservancies in Namibia</span>

Namibia is one of few countries in the world to specifically address habitat conservation and protection of natural resources in their constitution. Article 95 states, "The State shall actively promote and maintain the welfare of the people by adopting international policies aimed at the following: maintenance of ecosystems, essential ecological processes, and biological diversity of Namibia, and utilization of living natural resources on a sustainable basis for the benefit of all Namibians, both present and future.".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wildlife Alliance</span>

Wildlife Alliance is an international non-profit forest and wildlife conservation organization with current programs in Cambodia. It is headquartered in New York City, with offices in Phnom Penh. The logo of the organization is the Asian elephant, an emblematic species and the namesake for the Southwest Elephant Corridor that Wildlife Alliance saved when it was under intense threat of poaching and habitat destruction in 2001. It is today one of the last remaining unfragmented elephant corridors in Asia. Due to Government rangers' and Wildlife Alliance's intensive anti-poaching efforts, there have been zero elephant killings since 2006. Dr. Suwanna Gauntlett is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Wildlife Alliance, and one of the original founders of WildAid. The organization is governed by a board of directors and an international advisory board that provides guidance on strategy, fundraising, and outreach.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ivory trade</span> Commercial, often illegal, trade of animal ivory

The ivory trade is the commercial, often illegal trade in the ivory tusks of the hippopotamus, walrus, narwhal, black and white rhinos, mammoth, and most commonly, African and Asian elephants.

The Okomu National Park, formerly the Okomu Wildlife Sanctuary, has been identified as one of the largest remaining natural rainforest ecosystem. Due to the high biodiversity seen in the Okomu National Park, a Wildlife Sanctuary was first established there.

Margaret Jacobsohn is a Namibian environmentalist. She was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize in 1993, jointly with Garth Owen-Smith, for their efforts on conservation of wildlife in rural Namibia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elephant hunting in Kenya</span>

Elephant hunting, which used to be an accepted activity in Kenya, was banned in 1973, as was the ivory trade. Poaching continues, as there is still international demand for elephant tusks. Kenya pioneered the destruction of ivory as a way to combat this black market. Elephant poaching continues to pose a threat to the population.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mudumu National Park</span> National park in Namibia

Mudumu is a National Park in Caprivi Region in north-eastern Namibia. The park was established in 1990. It covers an area of 737 square kilometres (285 sq mi). The Kwando River forms the western border with Botswana. Various communal area conservancies and community forests surround Mudumu National Park.

Hemmersbach Rhino Force is a direct action conservation organization acting with a focus on the African rhinos. Rhino Force's main activities consist of anti-poaching rangers in the Greater Kruger National Park, a biobank called Hemmersbach Rhino Force Cryovault to preserve rhino genes and the Black Rhino Reintroduction to bring back rhinos to the Mid Zambezi Valley in Zimbabwe.

References