Imagine a landscape richly endowed with wildlife and forests, protected largely within the boundaries of national parks and national forest. Surrounding these protected areas, picture the land fragmented with clearings to support a growing population of rural communities dependent on farming to support their livelihoods. For years, families had limited access to markets that provided sufficient economic incentives to develop improved farming practices. As a result, most could not produce enough food, let alone surplus for markets, to last to the next harvest. The outcome of this scenario is easy to imagine, low-grade, persistent degradation of resources caused by poor rural people whose coping strategies contributed to annual losses of 1000s of wild animal from snaring and illegal hunting, over-fished fisheries and degraded forests from increased reliance on charcoal-making for earning extra money. It is a scenario that is real and typifies many parts of the Luangwa Valley ecosystem in Zambia. Past decades of development assistance have largely failed to fully address these challenges and may way have actually contributed to increased poverty levels by failing to recognize ways to promote linkages between conservation and rural livelihoods.
Community Markets for Conservation (known as COMACO) is an approach to rural development that helps drive these linkages. Impacting on over 250,000 people, COMACO reaches out into remote rural areas where the effects of poverty on environmental threats are often most acute. With its 36 trading depots and growing workforce of extension trainers and community-volunteer trainers, farmers now have the infrastructure to bulk commodities and access new skills and inputs to improve yields. More importantly, farmers have a partner that provides premium commodity prices that are two to three times greater than previously earned in exchange for complying with farming and land use practices designed to protect soils and trees and reduce the need to poach wildlife.
Operating as a non-profit company committed to reinvesting profits into continued improvements in food security, incomes and conservation, COMACO has established commercial value-added food processing hubs, referred to as community trading centres, for producing products under the brandname It’s Wild!. Today, these products are found on store shelves all over Zambia produced from rice, soybeans, groundnuts, honey and maize. The labels tell the story clearly. Buy It’s Wild! and help Zambia’s poor have a better life and live more in balance with their natural resources. COMACO producer group members know that if they violate their conservation agreement with COMACO, they risk losing eligibility to premium prices and discounted inputs.
It is an exciting and hopeful story that is also becoming better understood by the buying consumer. Not surprising, Zambians are showing a preference for It’s Wild!, both because its products are high quality, organic and nutritious, but also because they are good for Zambia by helping conserve natural resources. With the help of the Royal Norwegian Embassy and other key funding partners, COMACO has established 5 trading centres and currently trades with 10,000 farmers emerging from years of a food deficit to a food surplus. Studies show that COMACO contributes to an annual saving of over 5000 wild animals and has dramatically reduced the incidents of bush fires destructive to trees and wildlife habitat. Moreover, the premium prices offered by COMACO support incentives for farmers to remain compliant with farming practices that maintain soil fertility for reduced soil loss or reduced need to clear land for more farmland.
COMACO is still at an early stage of development as a business and has yet to demonstrate a net revenue gain. This is a major challenge for Wildlife Conservation Society, which directs COMACO and has undertaken business plans and annual audits to focus on strategic steps that need to be taken for building increased levels of sustainability for COMACO. Hopeful signs are increased volumes of sales, expected to exceed $1 million in the current fiscal year, and a declining revenue loss over previous year trends.
The conventional income sharing model derived from income from commercial hunting operators shared between the Zambian Wildlife Authority, the local Chiefs and the communities have not been sufficient to keep people out of poverty. COMACO is a key innovations in wildlife management and has extended the toolbox significantly.
Zambia offers Africa an exciting, hopeful solution for conservation and poverty reduction and could be applicable elsewhere as current efforts in Luangwa Valley help build a replicable, well-tested model. While Zimbabwe developed the CAMPFIRE model the Zambian COMACO model takes this one step further.
The long term Norwegian support to Luangwa includes a 25 year commitment to assist Zambia in protecting its biodiversity. South Luangwa has become the second most popular tourist destination in Zambia, and one of the best managed parks in Africa. The National Park is making substantial profit and the populations living adjacent to the park has a significant higher living standard compared to similar areas in Zambia. In short, South Luangwa has become a success story and COMACO is a part of this story.