Eco-Tourism in Zimbabwe - A Certain Style

Among the beneficiaries is the Hluvuko Theatre Group, which Malilangwe is supporting during Zimbabwean tourism’s current crisis. Elsewhere, local enterprises are less fortunate. Over 30 communities in Zimbabwe rely on income from tourism under CAMPFIRE (Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources), a widely admired, pioneering venture aimed at resolving the conflict over land between wildlife and people. Since its inception in 1989 over 250,000 rural Zimbabweans have taken control of their natural resources. Wildlife is now respected as a breadwinner.

Many trustee organisations are behind CAMPFIRE, including the Wildlife Department, to which hopeful district councils must apply. Some CAMPFIRE communities raise income by leasing land to tour operators such as the horseback safari company in Mavuradona. Others offer cultural and wildlife tourism themselves. In Mazoe, Sunungukai Camp is run by a locally elected committee and offers hiking, fishing and guided small game and birding walks. Guests can camp or stay in traditional huts, eat with villagers and enjoy storytelling and dancing.

Conservation is particularly important in CAMPFIRE areas adjacent to national parks, where conflict between wildlife and man has been greatest. Using funds raised, communities can fence their crops against wildlife (rather than killing it). Income is distributed to individual households, but is often pooled again for communal purposes — to improve schools or to buy a grinding mill. “There are problems to face, but I see CAMPFIRE as a child learning to walk,” says the project’s Cherry Bird. “Sometimes it falls, but you don’t abandon it saying it will be a cripple for life, you pick it up… and set it on its way again. If you look after it well, teach it and feed it, maybe it will look after you in your old age.” Her words could apply to any community tourism project in Africa. Hopefully Zimbabwe’s CAMPFIRE communities will emerge from the country’s current difficulties walking tall.