Conservation Through Livelihoods: Zambia’s Sustainable Wildlife Management Program

For nearly 25 years, Elliot Mudenda relied on hunting to support his family in Nyawa Chiefdom in southern Zambia. He had started as a farmer, but recurring droughts gradually made farming unreliable and unproductive. With few alternative income options available, hunting became a means for survival. Yet, Elliot knew the risks – the predawn darkness, the hours spent tracking game, the threat of wild animals, and the fear of arrest or injury. “I never stopped caring about wildlife,” Elliot says, understanding his path was unsustainable. “But, I also had to survive.”

From Hunting to Fish Farming

Today, Elliot has stopped hunting. Instead, he manages fish ponds as a member of the Sianyongo Fish Farming cooperative. This shift represents more than a change in occupation; it is part of a broader experiment in whether conservation can succeed by offering people viable economic alternatives. The Sustainable Wildlife Management Program (SWM), funded by the European Union and implemented by the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF) and partners, is built on the principle that conservation cannot succeed where livelihoods fail.

Elliot Mudenda, a member of the Sianyongo Fish Farming cooperative in Nyawa Chiefdom, southern Zambia. Photo by CIFOR-ICRAF.

Climate Variability and the Search for Alternatives

Elliot’s experience reflects a familiar pattern across much of rural Zambia, where climate variability has made rain-fed agriculture increasingly unpredictable. He started farming, but when the rains became unreliable in the early 2000s, his yields dropped. With few alternatives and a family to support, he turned to hunting. When CIFOR-ICRAF, under SWM, began working in Nyawa in 2022, Elliot saw an opportunity for change. “I was looking forward to the alternatives SWM was bringing to us,” Elliot explains. “We needed safer and more reliable ways to earn a living.”

Building Alternatives: Fish Farming, Beekeeping, and Goat Rearing

The initiative supported communities in Nyawa Chiefdom to establish and develop nature-based enterprises, including aquaculture, beekeeping, and goat rearing. The Sianyongo Fish Farming Cooperative, established in 2024, emerged from these efforts. Beyond the construction of fish ponds, the program installed submersible pumps that support pond management, doubling as community water infrastructure and improving water access. Previously, many households had to walk long distances to collect water. Now, water access is closer and more reliable.

Elliot also benefited from a livestock spray race – a facility that helps prevent tick-borne and other livestock diseases, keeping cattle healthy. Importantly, the spray race also functions as a community enterprise, generating income while strengthening local ownership. These investments reduce vulnerability and create lawful, lower-risk income streams.

Addressing the Governance Gap

Experience in Nyawa and elsewhere has shown that forming cooperatives is only part of the solution. Many groups initially functioned more as recipients of support rather than structured businesses, lacking governance systems, financial discipline, and market orientation. Without strong management, the enterprises struggled, and some members drifted back toward illegal activities.

To address these gaps, CIFOR-ICRAF partnered with Zambia’s Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprises Development to deliver a five-day enterprise development training in Zimba District for cooperatives from Nyawa Chiefdom. The curriculum covers business development, value addition, marketing, financial management, and access to finance, aiming to reposition cooperatives as functioning enterprises capable of sustaining themselves beyond initial project support and becoming engines of local economic development.

Social Safeguards Consultant Daniel Phiri, who helps facilitate the training for CIFOR-ICRAF, says the emphasis is on long-term sustainability. “We are trying to create a change culture,” Phiri says. “In the past, communities would start activities like fish farming, but without strong business systems, they would not last. Now we are strengthening how these enterprises are managed so they turn into sustainable.”

Learning the Rules of Collective Enterprise

For Elliot and his fellow cooperative members, one of the most eye-opening parts of the training has been cooperative governance. Before the training, many members were unfamiliar with cooperative by-laws, leadership accountability, and decision-making processes. Governance gaps sometimes led to poor decisions and weak performance.

“We did not understand the bylaws properly before,” Elliot admits. “Now we know how leadership should work, how members can question decisions and how we can improve the cooperative.” The training also covers accessing financing through government programs like the Constituency Development Fund and the Citizens Economic Empowerment Commissions.

Conservation Through Viable Livelihoods

What is happening in Nyawa Chiefdom shows that effective conservation requires more than patrols and penalties. When communities have functioning enterprises, access to markets, and business skills, the incentive to return to illegal or unsustainable activities declines. Strong cooperatives build local ownership, strengthen governance, and offer families the possibility of planning beyond the next harvest.

The program plans to replicate the training model in Musokotwane Chiefdom. For Elliot, the shift is already concrete. He no longer relies on hunting, instead managing fish ponds as part of the Sianyongo Fish Farming cooperative and participating in building a more structured, accountable enterprise. His experience illustrates a central premise of the Sustainable Wildlife Management Programme: when viable livelihood options exist and are well managed, conservation becomes not only a policy objective but a practical choice.

About the Sustainable Wildlife Management Program

The Sustainable Wildlife Management Program (SWM) is an international initiative aimed at enhancing the conservation and sustainable use of wildlife in forest, savannah, and wetland ecosystems. It is funded by the European Union, with co-funding from the French Facility for Global Environment (FFEM) and the French Development Agency (AFD). Projects are being piloted in 15 participating countries and implemented by a consortium including CIFOR-ICRAF, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), and the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD).

In Zambia, the SWM Programme activities are carried out by the Government of the Republic of Zambia and Nyawa and Musokotwane Royal Establishment (NRE) respectively in collaboration with CIFOR-ICRAF.