Forest Products, Livelihoods and Conservation

Dale Doré and Ivan Bond 323

on specific transects set up for the purposes of estimating wildlife numbers;and,

in conjunction with the safari operator, the trophy quality. This information is

analysed and stored by the scouts in the ward. Currently the information

gathered is only sufficient to develop an index of abundance of wildlife

populations in the ward. However, these results are used by the Ward Wildlife

Committee at the annual quota setting workshop. Table 1 illustrates how, in

1998, this information was used in conjunction with other methodologies to

assess the quota requested for elephant for 1999. More importantly, it highlights

the need to have locally based information against which other sources of

data can be triangulated, such as the aerial wildlife surveys carried out by

WWF and the Department of National Parks and Wildlife. These diverse but

complementary data sets are analysed in a workshop environment using a

participatory quota setting methodology (WWF 1997, 2001; Taylor 1998). The

recommendations from this workshop are submitted to the Department of

National Parks and Wildlife for verification, which then sets hunting quotas

for the council. These procedures and guidelines, as well as the steady growth

in elephant numbers, have contributed to Zimbabwe’s substantial share of

the global market for sport hunting of elephant. The recurrent cost of

monitoring activities is approximately 20% of recurrent expenditure, or 6% to

10% of total income.

The Ward Wildlife Committee is also responsible for maintaining the solar-

powered electric perimeter fence. For this purpose it employs locally trained

fence maintenance staff. Since adopting wildlife as a primary land use in the

ward, an electric fence has been erected (with financial assistance from donor

agencies) that now protects two of the three villages from wildlife. The

installation of the fence has substantially decreased the incidence of human

injuries as well as crop and livestock damage. As most residential and cultivated

areas are confined by the wildlife fence, practically all sport hunting is carried

out in the woodland area that is held in common.

1998 Ground Aerial Trophy Community Requested

quota count survey quality estimates quota for 1999

Elephant (male) 4 ↑↓↑↑ 4

Elephant (female) 15 ↑↓n/a ↑ 12

Source: Rigava personal communication.

↑ Increasing population

↓ Decreasing population

Table 1. The results of the participatory quota setting exercise in Kanyurira

Ward 1998

Key:

Support for wildlife management

In 1992, representatives of government and non-governmental organisations

(NGOs) formed an advisory committee, headed by the CAMPFIRE Association,

18sporthunting.P65 323 22/12/2004, 11:05