Conserving Wild Ecosystems

COMACO operates across entire rural communities and organizes producers on a scale large enough to address ecosystem-level resource management needs. As market incentives begin to reach enough households and providesufficient motivationto adopt more environmentally safe land use practices, COMACO can lower suchthreats as soil loss, tree-canopy decline, or excessive rain water run-off. More creative use of market incentives can lead to direct ecosystem repairs, such as tree replanting, livelihood shifts away from over-exploitative use of natural resources, or reduction of fires that start from burning crop residues.

COMACO represents one of Africas largest-scale experiments for demonstrating the innovative use of marketsto create a rural culture around the need to conserve.Results in just over 4 years speak of COMACO's great potentialfor conserving wild ecosystems in Africa and contributing to improved buffer management around national parks and national forests:

Farmers in Mfuwe were rewarded by trade bonuses for planting over 30,000 Acacia albida trees
100s of honey producers received trade bonuses for maintaining firebreaks around their forested apiaries
3000 tons of compost produced annually by farmers, adding to soil fertility
More than 10,000 maize plots in Luangwa Valley conformed to conservation farming where crop residues are left unburned in 2006
8000 bee hives have provided alternative income to charcoal making to thousands of households,adding economic value to living forests
Over 8 million woody plants planted as part of agroforestry interventions to promote food security