Recovered Snares

COMACO has received over 50,000 surrendered wire snares from farmers who once depended on them for killing wildlife and using meat to exchange for grain they could not produce themselves.  As farmers gain confidence in their farming skills and achieve food security with sufficient surpluses to sell to COMACO, the farmers must surrender their snares and keep their lands safe for wildlife.  The number of wild animals saved annually in this way is well into the thousands.  If farmers reverse this commitment and return to snaring, the COMACO company considers various options: withholding the conservation dividend to the whole community, foregoing the COMACO premium price or possibly withdrawing markets altogether until the snaring levels return to near zero levels.

Farmers all over the Luangwa Valley are beginning to realize that COMACO is about honesty and partnership.  In a very real and important way, COMACO has become a teacher in civic responsibility.  Two partners, each needing something from the other, must be committed to achieve their respective needs or the partnership fails and both sides lose.  The alternative to success is a life of an uncertain future and a declining resource base.  

COMACO is willing to work hard to develop the markets and necessary inputs to ensure farmers have a better life.  To do this, it has to operate as a company with the singular focus and determination to build a team and organization capable of producing products from the commodities it buys from the farmers it supports.  In return, these same farmers have to abide by their promise to stop certain practices that lead to the degradation and wasteful use of their natural resources.  One does the business, the other benefits from the business; the outcomes are better rural livelihoods and better managed natural resources.

Part of this promise is handing over snares.  Take Jairos Zimba.  He once owned 111 snares and managed to survive as a poor farmer by snaring wildlife every year to exchange meat for maize, maize he could not grow enough of because of the poor farming skills and lack of markets to promote greater interest in farming.  This has all changed under COMACO.   He now not only produces enough maize to feed his family, but he produces a surplus to sell to COMACO.  He has no further need for the snares and he surrendered all 111 to COMACO.  His children now attend school and he has an expanding set of skills and income opportunities under COMACO.