From snaring to farming

William Nyirenda, from Chief Chikwa's area, could not grow enough food to feed his family. Every year he depended on snares to exchange game meat for the food he failed to produce. Not a very happy person, he lived a dangerous life of drinking away his problems. COMACO encouraged him to join a farmer's producer group and learn better farming skills, and with help from World Food Program through an initiative called Food for Assets, he was given food assistance to commit his time to weeding and practicing the skills he was taught. Today he is a successful farmer and has surrendered his snares. This year he has grown 2 limas (one lima is 50 meters by 50 meters) of rice and will earn close to $500 from COMACO's preferential pricing offered to farmers who comply with conservation farming. In addition to 2.5 limas of maize that will produce about 32 bags of maize, he also has a patch of cassava to serve as a food reserve in drought years made possible by a program supported by Food and Agriculture Organization. William is no longer a drunkard and has no time or need to set snares.

William is one of over 30,000 farmers COMACO has worked with through an approach that increasingly uses improved markets based largely on value-added processing to remain committed to improving soils, growing food and producing surplus for fair market incentives. In exchange, COMACO asks farmers to work as partners with this enterprise to surrender their snares and be part of a future effort to ultimately sustain increased legal market opportunities from wildlife. Within four years, the process has led to an unprecedented number of over 40,000 snares surrendered voluntarily by these same farmers, over 40 times the number of snares law enforcement officers are able to recover during the same period.

Wildlife Conservation Society has examined the impact this recovery of snares has had on wild animals and estimates the number of animals saved annually is well over 3000 animals, including such vulnerable species as lion, leopard, wild dog, roan, waterbuck, and kudu. By working with farmers to overcome their struggles with food insecurity and poverty, opportunities for increased cooperation to conserve wildlife has dramatically improved in Luangwa Valley.

>> read more about the removal of snares in Luangwa Valley