Zimbabwe’s Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources – CAMPFIRE.

The Campfire programme is today an important component of Zimbabwe’s policy for wildlife management but its development was a response to previous policy shortcomings and the strong CB-NRM narrative that emerged in the 1980s. Campfire attempts a co-management arrangement at the interface of the state, private land and traditional authority. The following outline draws from Martin (1986), Metcalfe (1994) and Arnold (1998).

The political and historical setting

With the advent of colonialism all communal land in Zimbabwe was transferred to a system of mixed state and private ownership governed by the British. Within the settler administration (1890-1980) wildlife was always regarded as an important resource for government. An initial phase of intense exploitation was replaced by a period when Africa’s wildlife was regarded as “exotic recreational goods”.

A narrative emerged in the 1960s that linked conservation and sustainability with the ability of local people to enjoy revenues from wildlife. The Zimbabwe government acknowledged a problem with wildlife policy when the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Management questioned the role of state ownership. The 1975 Parks and Wildlife Act that resulted was intended to provide private commercial ranchers an incentive to protect wildlife in private or marginal lands that appeared under threat from over-exploitation.

However, the history of top-down management has had a lasting impact. Initial attempts to devolve management responsibility resulted in passive participation, at best.

The evolution of Campfire - actors as policy formers

Zimbabwe, unlike many other African countries in the 1960s and 1970s, possessed professional research institutions with expertise in applied ecology. The changes to wildlife policy that culminated in the Campfire programme can be traced to a handful of dedicated and influential actors within the research wing of the National Parks Department.

26 These professionals highlighted that the 1975 Parks and Wildlife Act emphasised the role of landowners in wildlife management but provided no management incentives for stakeholders in Communal Areas. The Campfire programme developed as direct attempt to introduce a social component to the economic and ecological objectives of the Act.

Campfire’s objectives are:

1) to initiate a programme for the long term development, management and sustainable utilisation of resources in the Communal Areas;

2) to achieve management of resources by placing the custody and responsibility with the resident communities;

3) to allow communities to benefit directly from the exploitation of natural resources within the Communal Area and;

4) to establish the administrative and institutional structures necessary to make the programme work (Martin, 1986).

When district councils and communities have successfully applied for Campfire status they receive training in wildlife and fire management and are supported in the process of forming committees.

The core element is the generation of revenues through hunting concessions and trophy fees. The greatest successes have occurred in areas where livelihoods options are very limited and where membership and roles have been thoughtfully and patiently negotiated between communities and local government. In these cases, Campfire has generally increased household incomes, reduced poaching and strengthened local conservation practices.

Coherence

Existing legislation meant that the original Campfire concept could not be fully implemented - decentralised wildlife management was only permissible down to the level of District Councils, not directly to communities – and no government agencies were willing to support the concept financially.

Campfire was promoted by a coalition of national NGOs and international agencies such as WWF that could attempt the approach without national policy change. A series of prototype projects followed. Campfire became an established programme within national policy in 1989 when the responsibility for wildlife was formally granted to two Districts.

Government acceptance of the Campfire concept was a significant achievement because it placed wildlife, communities and NRM at the centre of the debate about tenure and land reform. In addition, Campfire envisioned a role for local people in rural development, generally, rather than as passive custodians of “buffer zones”. The issue of policy coherence has been a key factor in implementing Campfire. The scope for communal wildlife is determined by policy in other sectors, all of which have a direct or indirect impact on wildlife. Some cross-cutting legislation conflicts

27 with wildlife conservation (legislation to promote and protect beef production from commercial herds, for example) and formal decentralisation policy is yet to reach the level required to make Campfire fully representative of local interests. In addition, the cross-over between the responsibilities of “modern” government structures and “traditional” authority is blurred and migration in and out of administrative areas makes it difficult to demarcate management areas and set boundaries. However, Campfire does attempt to actively include local wildlife users and has avoided conflict and management problems experienced in the wildlife sector in many other countries Box 1).

Box 1. CBNRM Trusts for wildlife management in Botswana. Local government does not currently have the capacity to implement CBNRM in line with policy (Source: Blaikie, 2006).

Other, non-NRM, policies also impact on Campfire. District Councils have tended to attempt to capture wildlife revenues before they reach community stakeholders. Arnold (1998) suggests that national fiscal policy and structural adjustments strategies are forcing local government to develop rent seeking behaviour and capture community revenue.

Current Campfire stakeholders – actors as policy implementers

Campfire has been promoted by a network of government and NGO partners called the Campfire Collaborative Group (CCG) that has assisted district councils and communities to develop and implement their management plans. The success of the CCG owes as much to the dedication of its members as to its structure but it has included the Department of National Parks and Wildlife, the University of Zimbabwe, the community-elected Campfire Associations at district level, the national NGO Zimbabwe Trust and WWF.

Policy spaces

Up-scaling Campfire and other CBNRM in Zimbabwe requires flexibility on the part of both government and traditional authority. All previous externally-driven CBNRM in the country had failed because local people had neither the power nor motivation to develop new institutions. It is possible that collaboration in the future can create a win-win outcome for both government and communities.

Botswana has a relatively well-established decentralisation policy relating to NRM which includes the Wildlife Conservation Policy (1986), the National Conservation Policy ((1990), the Tourism Policy (1990) and a national policy for CB-NRM (1990). In addition, suitable structures such as democratically elected District Councils and the Land Boards are already in place and undertake NRM functions and decision-making. A number of special CBNRM Trusts for the management of wildlife have been established but their roles have been quite rigidly defined by the Department of Wildlife and National Parks. Unfortunately, the management skills required means that village level government is excluded and it is foreigners that successfully bid for these Trusts. The Trusts often fail to employ local people and the relationship between them and local communities and traditional huntsmen is often marked by friction (Twyman, 2001). There are no formal mechanisms by which wildlife-generated revenues from tourism and hunting are channelled to other local stakeholders. This is perhaps a process of privatisation of NRM responsibility rather than decentralisation.

28 Finally, Campfire was developed for wildlife management but there are indications that the principal approach (legal partnership between communities and the government at district level) could be applied to forestry resources or to rural development policy more generally.

3.4.6. Reforming and decentralising Zimbabwe’s water management policy