Progressing Community Based Natural Resource Management in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe is ushering in a new era of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM). It is moving away from place-based wildlife management initiatives to more internationally linked forestry carbon projects which focus on the sequestration of carbon through conservation of forests and the subsequent trading of carbon credits. Learning lessons from the varied and complex history of Zimbabwe’s main CBNRM project – the Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resource Use (CAMPFIRE) – is necessary to ensure a successful progression of environmentally and socially just CBNRM in Zimbabwe.