WCS Fact Sheet for Zambia: Achieving Increased Wildlife Production through Increased Food Security, Removal of Snares

Fact sheet #2, 22 November 2003

1. Background

Baseline research by Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in Luangwa Valley indicated between 20 and 60% of resident households experienced chronic, annual food shortages, occurring mostly from December to April. Irregular rainfall explained much of this variation though poor farming practices, inadequate inputs like improved seed varieties, and lack of market incentives to motivate farm production contributed to persistent food shortfalls. 42% of these families adopted the use of wire snares to help cope with their hunger by killing wild animals as a source of game meat to barter for bulk foods like maize or sorghum. Households who used snares in this way killed on average 5.6 animals annually. Based on these statistics, a conservative estimate of annual wildlife losses from snaring in a pilot study area covering 15,000 km2 with a population of approximately 12,000 households exceeded 5000 wild animals. WCS recognized the tragic magnitude of the problem on tourism and future opportunities of sustaining rural income through legal wildlife markets.

In response, WCS developed a farmer-based intervention to solve this problem and co-opted the support of World Food Program (WFP) in partnership with Zambia Wildlife Authority and the Lundazi, Chama and Mambwe District Councils to test its impact over a significant area of Luangwa Valley. The approach, referred to as the ?food-for-better-farming? programme, targeted households who were least able to feed themselves, as based on physical examination of their granaries. Participants received free WFP maize in exchange for compliance to

? learn conservation farming and composting,

? form farmer groups to sustain peer interest in farming and conservation, and

? demonstrate commitment to their new farming skills by surrendering snares and???? following the laid down procedures of conservation farming.

The programme is now beginning its third year of implementation and has involved over 14,000 households. By all accounts, it is the largest-scale wildlife management experiment presently underway in Africa, covering a total area of over 20,000 km2. Current results show 67% of the WFP maize recipients achieved food security from their own efforts in farming after the first year. Farmer groups once formed remained active in promoting awareness among group members about the destruction snaring causes to wildlife and the advantages of conservation farming, composting and other livelihood skills. These results now provide the basis for assessing their possible impact on wildlife snaring in Luangwa Valley. Based on an absolute count of snares surrendered by farmer groups and an analysis of four independent indices of snare use, a dramatic reduction of wildlife snaring has occurred in the project area. In contrast to past efforts by ADMADE, LIRDP and SLAMU¹ to contain this problem, the food-for-better-farming programme has proven hugely more successful and cost-effective and offers Zambia a reliable way to plan wildlife management in areas outside its national parks.

2. A summary of analyses and results

A. Food security results

Farming season	Total farmers joining programme	Total assessed	Total conservation farmers (CF)	Total farmers composting	Total CF & composting	% food security increase	Total Area covered (Km2)	# of h/holds in programme
2001-2	2,434	1,584	961	0	0	30%	11,724	2,434
2002-3	5,574	2,697	2,176	1,899	1,576	67.9%	18,393	8,008
2003-4	6,500	(in progress)					29,174	14,000+

1 ADMADE, LIRDP and SLAMU are community-based wildlife management programmes in Zambia that channel safari hunting revenues back to local communities to support community projects but in general have not addressed food security needs at the household level.

B. Farmer group activities

Participants have organized themselves into over 450 farmer groups. Approximately 50% have their own by-laws pledging group cooperation to meet regularly, improve farming output, reduce dependence on game meat as a substitute for farming, and lower wildlife disturbances like bush fires.

C. Snares and guns recovered from farmer groups

Farming season	Total snares collected	Total guns collected
2001-2	6000	75
2002-3	8752	35
Total	14,752	110

D. Indices measuring trends in snare use

1) Percentage households who witnessed neighbors

bartering food for game meat (sample size = 252),

an average annual reduction of 40%.

01020304050607080PercentageChifundaChanjuziMwanyaChikwa200120022003

Year	% farmers admitting use of snares	number times snares used per year	number snares set when snaring
2000	57%	4.7	6.1
2003	7%	2.4	4.8

2) Wildlife scout assessment of snaring trends for past three years. Only scouts resident in the area for five or more years were interviewed:

Total camps surveyed	15
Total scouts interviewed	35
% replied snaring had declined	80%
% replied snaring had increased	20%
% replied no change in snaring	0%

3) Percentage contrast of safari clients who

complained about encountering snares while

hunting. Pre-food security intervention versus

post-food security intervention.

Year	Chikwa	Chanjuzi	Chifunda	Mwanya
1999	15%	50%	17%	62%
2003	0%	0%	0%	30%

4) Survey of 445 randomly selected farmers participating in the food-for-better-farming

programme on past and current use of snares.

A total of 91 community-based trainers use bicycles to provide year-round training courses to farmers in improved farming practices and seed varieties.

3. Impact on tourism and wildlife markets

The food-for-better-farming programme achieved increased food security among vulnerable households by linking improved farming practices to reduced dependence on wildlife snaring. Wildlife numbers saved through this programme exceeded 5000 animals annually, representing a value-added of over $1,250,000 in potential tourism revenues from safari hunting alone. Continued farmer group commitment to this programme represents an important way communities can produce wildlife by removing the threat of snares. Government support of policies that increase community rights to own and gain economic benefits from wildlife will therefore enhance incentives for communities to maintain good farming practices while remaining compliant to land use practices compatible with wildlife production.

All firearms surrendered were locally-made, muzzle-loading guns capable of killing large-bodied animals. 45% of snares recovered were made from cables believed to have come from the mines. 41% came from the wire inside bicycle tubes. Neither source is easily replaced. 2003 observation support this assertion.

Wildlife Conservation Society is legally registered in Zambia as the Foundation for the Conservation of Wildlife. Email: wcdlusak@coppernet.zm (WCS office), wcszam@coppernet.zm (Country Director)