COMACO Perspective

The Community Markets for Conservation (COMACO) program in Zambia seeks to address many of the conservation challenges Africa faces in maintaining a balance between rural people and the natural resources they live with. The underlying problems associated with many of Africa's human/land conflicts, however, are driven by higher-order social and economic conditions, such as poor markets, external market influences, and lack of farming skills and education, as well as environmental conditions that might limit food production or income opportunities. These conditions contribute to a range of livelihood stresses like hunger, illiteracy, poverty, and increased risks to disease. It is often in response to these stresses that rural communities adopt unsustainable uses of natural resources to help mitigate their livelihood needs. Such uses can sometimes take the form of illegal wildlife hunting where wildlife resources occur. Other examples include conversion of?trees into charcoal or over-exploitation of fisheries for quick access to cash. In other cases, households might respond to various market opportunities that eventually lead to soil loss or other environmental conflicts because more appropriate, environmentally friendly markets are lacking. As these livelihood strategies persist and begin to deplete natural resources, the diminishing supply of resources relative to a growing demand creates a positive feedback on resource use. Without an effective way to reverse this trend, the rate of resource loss accerates. These sets of relationships are illustrated below.

The COMACO perspective is that alternative markets do exist and with the right business and management approach that can sustain household incentives to adopt more rational land use practices, rural communities can make the right choices to live better lives without destroying their natural resources.