CAMPFIRE: Zimbabwe's Communities Turning Wildlife Into Income

CAMPFIRE (the Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources) is Zimbabwe's pioneering system for handing wildlife management, and its revenue, to the rural communities who live alongside it. Since 1989, Rural District Councils have leased hunting and photographic safari rights to operators on communal land, then channeled at least half of the proceeds directly to the villages that bear the daily cost of living with elephants, lions and buffalo. Twenty-three Rural District Councils now report to the CAMPFIRE Association, and the programme touches an estimated 2.4 million people across roughly 800,000 households. Revenue has funded clinics, schools, grain stores and boreholes, turning wildlife into a source of income rather than only a threat to crops and livestock.