Reducing conflicts

There is a broader challenge to conserve wildlife than limiting the approach to only people who illegally hunt or set wire snares. It is the challenge of building a more collective responsibility by entire rural communities to address longer-term land management needs to avoid misusing such resources as soils, forests and rivers. By developing appropriate technologies that will enhance farm production on a fixed area of land, it becomes more feasible to allocate other land for wildlife management to complement uses more directly related to agriculture.

COMACO has done this in a number of ways. For example, in areas where rural communities reside in areas of high wildlife densities, farmers cannot reliably produce a food crop because of frequent crop damage from wild animals. As a result many households experience chronic food shortages during the year, often resulting in increased levels of snaring. In response, COMACO has helped communities to leverage resources to establish solar-powered electric fence enclosures around farming areas as wildlife barriers. By removing the threat of wild animals, farmers are more willing to invest in better soil management practices to grow crops that can better sustain food and income opportunities. Problems can arise, however, where individuals may vandalize the wire to use as snares. COMACO has shown, though, that if persistence to good governance over the management of the fence is made, such problems will usually disappear and the community is left with a much stronger foundation for sustaining food needs and agreeing to ways to way to more proactively protect their wildlife resources.

COMACO continues to develop improved leadership and governance for natural resource management through the development of producer group cooperatives, who elect leaders and participate in public forums to exchange views on best farming practices while acknowledging their responsibility to protect their natural resources. Through such forums, communities adopt and continually reinforce a land management plan, which is as requirement to have access to COMACO's trade benefits. Practical, action-oriented decisions form the basis of these plans and help reinforce communities commitment to control bush fires, unnecessary tree cutting and the use of wire snares.