The Future

COMACO partnres with rural communities to create a safe and sustainable future.

Victoria is a mother of three.  She is a good person, married and struggling to raise her family.  When her husband lost his job at a tourist lodge, money and food became a terrible problem and her children failed to go to school.  Just growing enough food to meet their needs was her main concern.  She heard about COMACO and joined a producer group.  Today, she earns over K3 million from the sale of rice to COMACO, which helped her with inputs, skills and a ready market.  She has moved out of her small mud-pole house and now has a home with a separate bed-room for her children, covered by a metal roof.  “My children are safe now.  I know my daughter will not become a prostitute or my sons, poachers.  I owe all this to COMACO”.

The future lies with the next generation that will hopefully know and appreciate what COMACO has done to help restore families’ stability and well-being.  The understanding of what can happen when people and partners fail to learn from each other and unite for a better future can leave a community and especially households isolated, alone and more impoverished.  COMACO has a vision that the partnership it has created will never end and the future for Victoria’s children and other children like hers will be a future where the welfare of both people and nature are inextricably linked and continue to improve over time.  Understanding of this linkage will continue to evolve and grow, taking on new challenges like family planning, forest restoration, soil management, increased income diversification, and improved family health. 

COMACO and rural communities have become partners, supported by Government institutions that need such partnerships to help reduce waste and unnecessary costs that mismanagement of natural resources almost always causes.  COMACO does not offer charity or hand-outs, but builds self-reliance at the family level in exchange for commitment to conservation.  It restores confidence, pride and dignity in the prospects of taking control of one’s life and learning skills that can build a safe and sustainable future with the land and resources a community has to manage and look after.  With such stability, local residents, traditional leaders and local Government authorities can begin a discussion about how to solve problems of the future and not crises of today.  COMACO is there to help make these discussions happen sooner as immediate needs of hunger and poverty are overcome. 

With more money now flowing into the community, over K5 billion in 2009, households will be able to invest in their children’s health care and education.  Young girls can stay in school and learn safer ways to live without an early pregnancy that can end their chances of a full education and a more complete life.   What started as an effort to help conserve elephants has become an approach to conservation that unites people with wildlife through the shared interest of keeping both humans and natural resources safe and eligible for households to gain the full economic benefits that COMACO promises if they cooperate.  Indeed, a new future for conservation and rural families has dawned in Zambia.