Skills Training and Outreach

Alternative livelihoods - To promote more secure rural livelihoods that are in balance with local natural resources, COMACO supports an active extension service to equip producer group members with improved livelihood skills to grow enough food and earn income in ways compatible with good land management and in many instance, supportive of wildlife management. In particular, COMACO has focused these efforts on poultry, goat rearing, fish farming, bee keeping, dry season farming of fruits and vegetables, and massive commitment to promoting conservation farming for improved soil and crop management.

One particular group of people COMACO has worked closely with to help introduce these skills are local hunters who have a history of poaching wildlife. These efforts have helped 331 poachers to surrender their firearms and take up entirely new livelihoods, as part of a COMACO activity called the Poacher Transformation Program. The training program last for 8 weeks and participants are taught carpentry, poultry and goat husbandry, bee-keeping, dry-season gardening, and fish-farming.

COMACO promotes better ways to use natural resources. Zambia's watersheds are declining from the harmful effects of charcoal making as well as inappropriate crops that put increased strain on the land as crops outstrip the soils of their nutrients. To date, COMACO has helped communities establish over 1200 bar hives and hopes to reach 4000 over the next two years. By offering improved prices for honey, more people are realizing the value of keeping their forests and avoiding crops that require the use of pesticides that deplete honey bees in the area.

COMACO actively promotes better poultry and goat husbandry practices to increase the supply of alternative meat protein to game meat in rural communities living in wildlife areas. In the past, this was difficult due to the high incidence of disease and poor management of young chickens and goats. COMACO facilitates the supply of low-cost veterinary supplies to poultry and goat producers and through its depots is able to facilitate regular market days for producers to sell their chickens at fair market prices to encourage the adoption of better husbandry skills.

Due to lack of water and high incidence of crop damage from wild animals, many families go through the dry season without a reliable source of green, leafy vegetables. This increases the demand on game meat and fish protein. COMACO has helped to solve this problem with its large and expanding solar-powered electric fencing program and technical assistance to construction of wells and the use of treadle pumps to assist gardening groups irrigate their gardens. Communities acquiring these skills have begun to mobilize their own resources to buy equipment themselves to expand their electric fences and to acquire different varieties of vegetable seeds to promote local trade in vegetables.

Since the inception of COMACO, over 1000 households have begun to grow dry season gardens and have planted a variety of fruit trees now protected from elephants and other wild animals. Children are having a more balanced diet of fresh vegetables and parents are gaining confidence in ways to live with wildlife.

In some areas COMACO has begun to help communities establish fish farms while also demonstrating the value of maintaining watersheds and perennial water sources to sustain fish production throughout the year. Fish farming has large potential in the water catchment areas of Luangwa Valley and is an effective way to demonstrate the value of good water management through better land use practices that reduce the need to clear land or burn forests.