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Abstract:
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"The last decade has seen a rapid increase and growing interest in the communal areas management programme for indigenous resources (CAMPFIRE) in Zimbabwe's largely rural areas. Ostensibly the Campfire programme has allowed multiple resource use in the communal areas of the lowveld (wildlife, livestock and crops) and yet its driving philosophy appears to be a conservation one not a development and empowering one. Using newly collected longitudinal data on individuals, households and communities in Mahenye, together with findings from qualitative fieldwork, the study undertook policy-relevant research on the complexities and dynamics in relationships, roles, rights and partnerships between and within the indigenous people of Mahenye and the tourist operators. Preliminary findings indicate that Campfire is an explicitly nonredistributive development model which, notwithstanding its participatory rhetoric, legitimises the status quo with regard to land and resource ownership. Indeed it could even be argued to make way for the expansion of commercial wildlife interests into communal areas in the guise of public-private partnership. The study also reveals that by focusing on increasing flows of money under the guise of CBNRM partnerships, Campfire has not contributed to transforming the rural economy in Mahenye. If anything, it has successfully given legitimacy to minority interests that have extended their tourist investments into the very communal areas. The study concludes by noting that the unlocking of communal areas through the privatization and commercialization of wildlife resources, under the rhetoric of campfire, has not only widened the disparity between the poor and the rich within the community, but also brought with it mounting challenges for governing the commons at the local level by compelling powerful (largely external or strangers) people to increase their access to land and wildlife resources to the detriment of the indigenous people."
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