The World Bank/WBI’s CBNRM Initiative

Case Received: February 2, 1998

Author: Elias Madzudzo

Fax: +263-4 307134 / 333407 / 335 249

This is a case study of the Communal Area Management Programme for Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE), in Zimbabwe. CAMPFIRE is a Natural Resources Management Project (NRMP) funded by USAID as part of a regional initiative in wildlife conservation. Campfire is a national initiative which attempts to put the management of wildlife in the hands of the communities who live, and thus paythe price for living, in proximity to it. Campfire seeks to direct the income from wildlife to local communities and households, to ensure that local people derive maximum benefit from the land that they occupy which has suitable habitat for wildlife as well as for livestock and to a lesser extent, agriculture.

CAMPFIRE is a community based management programme which seeks to demonstrate that wildlife is a viable and alternative land use option in ecologically marginal communal lands. This is by making those living with the wildlife and (paying the costs of doing so) benefit from wildlife use (DNPWLM, 1984, 1990). Such benefits are meat and revenues from wildlife safari hunting of, especially elephant¹. Costs of living with wildlife in the communal lands are, among others, crop and livestock destruction. These costs are not evenly distributed within these communities. The paper argues that distribution of benefits from management of wildlife does not reflect this difference, in the districts studied. These points underline the need for a careful identification of the producer community.

Campfire seeks to extend communal resource tenure to wildlife to ensure sustainable and equitable use by the communal area members. Control and use of wildlife was removed from the communal area people during the colonial era. In colonial times, traditional leadership structures were supposed to play a role in land and resource management but these traditional structures had no powers of exclusion and access to certain natural resources for example, wildlife². It is believed that 'environmental degradation may be more symptomatic of an institutional breakdown in the face of colonialism, than any reflection of shortcomings inherent to common property systems³. After independence local communities through rural district councils were granted authority by the government to manage and utilise wildlife in their territories i.e. CAMPFIRE.

In 1978 Wildlife Industries New Development for All (WINDFALL) programme was introduced to address the issue of communal lands which had wildlife (and the costs which go along with it) but did not derive an income from them. Windfall was guided by the belief that human/wildlife conflict would be reduced and attitudes towards conservation improve if the affected communities received some benefits from the utilisation of wildlife. This would be in the form of meat (food security, I suppose) and revenues. The money was administered through the Central Treasury (and the red tape associated with government activity), not much of the meat got to the local communities. There was no link between wildlife revenues and wildlife management. It was difficult to differentiate wildlife revenues from any other government handouts since the money was used for any project decided by the council. In summary WINDFALL was a failed initiative as a participatory community based programme.

Given the shortcomings of WINDFALL coinciding with the independence government's desire to decentralise planning and rural development, the Department of National Parks and Wild Life came up with another programme, CAMPFIRE (Martin op cit).

In 1988 two Districts, Nyaminyami and Guruve, were granted the Appropriate Authority status over the wildlife resources in the same manner the private ranch owners had been granted the authority status in 1975.

'This status empowered the district councils to, subject to quota restrictions imposed by government, determine schemes of utilisation for their wildlife.receive all revenues directly, disperse these revenues at their discretion' (Murphree, op cit)

I. Benefits in the CAMPFIRE programme in the two districts come in various forms. These are money for households and projects and meat from wildlife hunting and problem animal control.

II. Tsholotsho and Bulilimamangwe differ in the process of benefit distribution. Tsholotsho has taken steps to deliver the highest proportion of benefits to the wards which have the highest number of animals and therefore the habitat for wildlife. The ward in which the hunt takes place is regarded as the producer of the animal. The producing ward gets fifty percent of the revenues from that particular animal. However wildlife is fugitive resource which affects even those wards where hunts may not take place. As result the fifty percent of the revenues from safari operations are shared equally among the CAMPFIRE wards. The wards closest to the wildlife area are satisfied with this arrangement because they are able to get the greater share of the revenues. However those wards which are in the interior where hunts do not take place are demanding that this condition should be changed and all wards should get equal shares of wildlife revenues. The frontline wards have argued that this should not be the case until the electric fence is erected. This is an acknowledgement that the elephant is the source of the money and the electric fence will keep these animals from the fields in the future.

Within the wards the revenues are shared equally among the villages. It is up to the villages to decide how the money is used in the ward. Ward 3 in Tsholotsho first decided that the money should be shared as household dividends. Each household got $35,00 in 1992. The ward also decided to effect compensation for crop and livestock damage. However this exercise was seen to be too difficult to execute and was abandoned after the first attempt. Not all households got compensation because the money was not enough to go round. The ward has gone back to sharing the revenues among the villages equally. The villages have also abandoned the idea of household dividends and resorted to carrying out projects like schools, and bore holes. At present a planning committee has been set up which prioritises the projects in each village. The money will be used per project based on a priority list drawn up by the planning committee.

In terms of benefit distribution there is an indication that all members of the ward should benefit. There is no effort to exclude other villages or households from benefitting from wildlife revenues. Household dividends depend on the number of people who claim a share of the money. In other words the size of the population determines the amount of money each household receives. However there has not been an effort to reduce or keep to a minimum the number of households which receive benefits from wildlife funds. When the wildlife chairman for ward 3, in Tsholotsho was informed that in other districts there were attempts to keep immigrants from benefiting from wildlife resources, he found the approach absurd.

Tsholotsho district has decided to create a wildlife buffer area between the settled areas and the Hwange National Park fence boundary. The villages in Ward 3 were asked to determine the trace line for the electric fence. One village Thuthukhani refused to allow the fence to pass through their area. As a result the fence had to run along the present Hwange National Park fence. However the village still receives revenues from wildlife although they refused to give up land for the creation of a buffer area for wildlife. Furthermore ward three has not made an attempt to differentiate the villages in terms of wildlife impacts. Benefits are therefore not associated with cost at village level which is the case at ward level.

Bulilimamangwe has one wildlife area where the hunting takes place. This is the area which is also used for seasonal grazing. Benefits from wildlife hunting are shared equally among the wards. The wards then share the revenues equally among villages. The money in Bulilimamagwe has been used for projects in most cases. During the interviews we pointed out to the local government officials that the not all the wards paid the same price for wildlife damage and livestock predation. In reply it was pointed out that it is difficult to exclude some of the wards because they were included in the setting up of the project. Some of the councillors put a lot of effort in getting the people to agree to the project. These councillors would not agree to be excluded at this time of the project.

Makhulela ward in Bulilimamangwe shares a boundary with the wildlife area. The households in one of the villages Sihoho suffer a lot of crop damage from wildlife. However they did not feel that they were entitled to a greater share of the wildlife revenues. Their wish was that problem animal control should be intensified do that they can be able to get enough food for their families. One woman felt that it was not proper for her village though being in the frontline to receive all the revenues from wildlife while others even though they did not suffer crop damage did not receive any revenues.

This case study has underlines the need to carefully define the producer community in wildlife management. This is important for CAMPFIRE to demonstrate that wildlife management is a viable alternative land use option. It has been shown in this paper that one way of doing this is by carefully defining the producer community when distributing benefits.

Those who argue for common property regimes in sub saharan Africa argue that there is an institutional base collective for action in these communities. The most important issue is the manner in which the benefits from using the commons are shared. In most cases households or groups of households use the products of the commons not as an entire group of unconnected households who are in the same area. Ward and village boundaries are not a reflection of the social relations existing within these geographical boundaries. Distributing wildlife revenues on the basis of the village or ward, therefore, may not promote the emergence of collective action, especially in cases where the costs of living with wildlife are not experienced on the basis of villages or wards.This case shows a need to establish a positive link between the costs and benefits of wildlife management in the communal areas.

¹ Aesthetic benefits are not considered for the purposes of this discussion.

² see also Murphree, M.W. 1991 Communities as Institutions for Natural Resource Management

³ Peck, J.E. 1993 'From Royal Game to Popular Heritage - Wildlife Policy and Resource Tenure Under Colonial and Independent Rule in Zimbabwe'