By Doughty Chibeya  –
In 1988 the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) of Zambia adopted a revenue sharing approach to community-based wildlife management known as the Administrative Management Design Programme (ADMADE).
The objectives of ADMADE programme were, and still are, to raise and improve the welfare of communities living in Game Management Areas (GMAs), while at the same time promoting wildlife conservation.
There are 36 GMAs in the country, covering the equivalent of 31 percent of Zambia’s surface area. ADMADE established a wildlife revenue revolving fund through which 35 per cent of revenue from trophy hunting was channelled to local communities.
Funds used to be allocated to a Wildlife Management Sub-authority (WMSA) consisting of government officials and community leaders, and then spent on community projects and the employment of village scouts to deal with poaching. Chiefs played a strong role in the early ADMADE system and often appropriated the income for their own purposes.
A second early approach involving local communities in wildlife conservation was developed in the Luangwa Integrated Rural Development Project (LIRDP). This project intended to develop wildlife and tourism-based rural economy that could pay for local infrastructure and services.
However, the first legislation to make provision for community involvement and benefit was the National Parks and Wildlife Act of 1991. The Minister was enabled by the legislation to appoint integrated resource development committees to manage any national park or GMA. All revenues generated from the use of wildlife could be payable into a fund set up by the committee.
However, this approach did not prove successful because of several ambiguities in the legislation. Further, both the ADMADE approach and the LIRDP continued to operate in parallel as the main mechanisms for involving local communities in wildlife conservation.
The Policy for National Parks and Wildlife in Zambia, which was adopted in 1998 further, developed the government’s approach to community involvement. It recognized that local people and other landholders are the best custodians of wildlife and other renewable natural resources on their land (HURID 2002).
It also made provision for the establishment of Integrated Resources Development Boards (IRDBs) that could collect revenue from the use of wildlife and other resources.
This approach is similar to that of the 1991 legislation, but it went further by specifying that local communities residing in chiefdoms and geographic areas which are contiguous to any wildlife estate or open area could apply and register as IRDBs with the new Zambia Wildlife Authority (ZAWA). Representatives of the board would be elected rather than appointed by government as under the 1991 legislation.
In order to put the new policy into effect, the government adopted the Zambia Wildlife Act of 1998. The Act created ZAWA as a parastatal organization. It makes provision for the establishment of Community Resources Boards (CRBs) which replace the Wildlife Management Sub-authorities under the ADMADE system.
The CRBs often (but not always) cover the area of chiefdom in geographical extent. Within a Game Management Area there can be potentially more than one CRB. The board committees consist of elected community representatives, a representative of the local authority and a representative of the chief for the area. Chiefs are assigned the role of “patron” of the board.
A CRB, in conjunction with ZAWA established by the Act, is expected to negotiate “co-management agreements” with hunting and photographic safari operators.
At the same time, changes to the ADMADE implementation approach have led to the promotion of more local level institutions called Village Action Groups (VAGs) which would interact with Community Resources Boards to provide improved community involvement.
The CRBs and VAGs represent a significant shift within ADMADE towards a more democratic approach to community involvement than in the past when chiefs dominated the decision making at community level.
However, the income from hunting and tourism concessions will still first be paid into the ZAWA and only then will a percentage be passed on to the CRB. The most recent revenue sharing formula has been determined as follows:
CRBs 45 per cent
Patrons (chiefs) 5 per cent ZAWA 40 per cent
Government 10 per cent.
Hunting quotas are set by ZAWA, although communities are asked to comment on these.
The first weakness is that the management rights given to communities by the Wildlife Act of 1998 are not specified. While the Act can be interpreted to provide strong devolution to communities, in the absence of specific provisions detailing community rights, government officials are unlikely to implement such devolution.
In the absence of clearly defined rights, the allocation of hunting concessions has remained highly centralised and has been subject to political/bureaucratic manipulation with the result that communities have lost considerable revenue (Child 2003).
The second weakness is that The Zambian CBNRM approach still rests heavily on a model of revenue sharing that leaves only 50 per cent of income with communities. This threatens the CBNRM/wildlife sector’s potential for growth and its contribution to national poverty reduction goals (Child 2003).
It will only make considerable impacts if the local communities are given 80 per cent of the income from hunting and tourism concessions. This is when we will start seeing changes in poverty levels. Gibson (1999) in a study of the ADMADE and LIRDP projects in Zambia concluded that illegal off-take of wildlife in the late 1980s and early 1990s was continuing at pre-project intervention levels partly because the individual returns from hunting far outweighed a resident’s share in the benefits that the projects could deliver.
There are strong reasons why the revenue sharing approach is unlikely to change in the near future. This is because, ZAWA despite being in operation for 12 years has no proper funding, and so it wholly depends on the income from hunting and tourism concessions.
ZAWA is not going to implement approaches that cut off its own funding. Let the government help in this matter. Let all Zambians wakeup and stop trusting on mines only, it’s time to also invest in wildlife sector and agriculture. If only the government would have some formed of consistence in channelling some funds in wildlife sector, we would sooner than soon see a fruits in the same sector.
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