Steps that Led to COMACO- A History of Elephant Conservation

The rattle of automatic gunfire broke the silence of a quiet Saturday afternoon. Seconds later the horrific screams of elephants filled the air. Their sounds were human-like and were unmistakably that of pain and anguish. Across the Luangwa River in the South Luangwa National Park, poachers inflicted horrific death to two family groups of elephants and hacked out their ivories. Two days later wildlife police officers of the Zambia Wildlife Authority ambushed this group of poachers with more than 30 tusks and brought them to their headquarters for interrogation. All lined up on the ground with handcuffs, they looked pitiful wearing tattered clothes that covered their wiry, thin-bodies. Weeks later, they would begin long prison terms. Each came from villages outside the national park where they farmed and supported their families. They risked their lives, their families and ended up serving long prison terms. What was their motivation to imperil themselves and their family for this occupation of killing elephant?

For over 30 years, Wildlife Conservation Society has worked closely with the Zambian Government to help answer this question and translate it into a better way of protecting such wild animals as the elephant. Thompson Tembo was one of Luangwa Valley’s most notorious poachers. Having killed hundreds of elephants and black rhinos and contributing to the extinction of the latter, he answers this question best by explaining his past.

“I grew up poor, as did my father, whose only skill was hunting. Though illegal, he hunted to feed and clothe our family, and so naturally, he taught me the same skill. I was imprisoned three times, and each time I came out, I poached even more to ensure my family was safe with what they needed. I never made much money but we survived. The people who made money were the people who bought the ivory and rhino horns. These traders were unscrupulous and would sometimes cheat me and leave without paying. Had I the skills to support my family in a better way, I would never have poached and killed so many animals.”

Zambia’s wildlife estate is vast and covers nearly a third of the country. With a total national park perimeter of 4613 kilometers, the task of keeping its protected area boundaries safe from human encroachment or illegal movement by hunters requires a costly effort by wildlife police officers. It is a cost Zambia struggles to support and in past years has failed to sustain on its own. Needed was a parallel way to help reduce this cost.

Years of research by Wildlife Conservation Society explored different strategies for embracing rural communities as partners for conservation. The realities on the ground made this challenge exceedingly complex and difficult. Wildlife and people intermingle across a vast landscape that lacked infrastructure of trade and technical services to sustain alternative livelihoods that could replace poaching and other forms of environmental abuse. As the problems became clearer from this research, so too did the solutions. What emerged was an approach that targeted people who needed help the most to avoid adopting livelihoods that conflicted with conservation. It became known as Community Markets for Conservation or COMACO, which operated a non-profit company that has since spread its services throughout much of Luangwa Valley offering rural poor skills and trade benefits for over 30,000 households in exchange for compliance to conservation. Its direct effect on wildlife is overwhelming.

Thompson Tembo comes from Chifunda Game Management Area. He is one of over 400 poachers who has completely transformed his life with COMACO’s help. The new skills and reliable markets that COMACO offers has given him an income and improved food security that far exceeds what he experienced as a poacher. Today, the rattle of gunfire has ceased and poaching has all but ended in Chifunda area, which lies adjacent to North Luangwa National Park. Thompson and his fellow hunters have no time to poach anymore and their children are learning new skills.

Helping to understand the simple relationship between livelihood needs and rates of poaching has enabled Wildlife Conservation Society to expand COMACO’s growing impact for protecting an entire ecosystem. If people destroy a forest in order to produce charcoal for a little extra income, is this activity not another form of “poaching” that COMACO can address? Degrading a landscape leaves not only fewer wild animals but less water to flow in rivers and less fish to help feed humans and less water for wild animals to drink from. It is an interlocking set of relationships that COMACO has the capacity and flexibility to embrace. .

In the following editions we will share with you the challenges of making the COMACO model work for conservation and the growing trends that show the numbers of firearms being put to rest, wildlife numbers expanding, and the recovery of forests and fisheries across the entire Luangwa ecosystem..