41. A more radical approach to land use planning is to suggest that, in substantial areas of the Zambezi Valley, peasant farmers should not keep cattle at all but rather develop wildlife utilization as an economic activity (Martin and Taylor, 1983). A wide range of options for wildlife exploitation has already been taken up by commercial farmers in Zimbabwe, with much success (Financial Gazette. 1988).
42. The Department of National Parks and Wildlife Management, under the auspices of its Communal Areas, Management Programme for Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE) is promoting wildlife exploitation as a form of land use in communal areas with very low agricultural potential (Martin, 1986). This programme has relevance to much of the remaining area of the country under tsetse infestation and indeed is being taken into serious account in the major land use planning exercises underway in Omay, Kanyati and the Mid-Zambezi Valley (Map 2).
43. As yet none of the CAMPFIRE projects has been fully handed over to local management, so that their long-term technical and economic performance remains to be demonstrated. There have been few independent studies of the comparative economics of communal wildlife utilization versus traditional agro-pastoralism in Zimbabwe. Brunt et al (1986) considered that the gross returns from communal land use based on arable farming combined with wildlife exploitation were comparable with those from traditional agro-pastoralism. Principally because of environmental and foreign exchange issues, they concluded that Zimbabwe's comparative advantage lies in exploiting wildlife resources. However, they emphasized the need for a more thorough comparative study of the cattle and wildlife industries.
44. Apart from the economic aspects of wildlife utilization, socio-cultural acceptability and organizational feasibility are open to question. Will local communities recognize and respond to social benefits associated with wildlife exploitation which may be higher and more sustainable but probably longer term than the private benefits associated with cattle ownership and hunting of game? What are the prospects that village-level organizations will be able to manage wildlife resources effectively? Only time will tell.
45. The prospect of extensive, successful wildlife utilization schemes under peasant management in the Zambezi Valley would be good reason for not undertaking tsetse control in this part of Zimbabwe, providing livestock were not also to be introduced. But it is unlikely that peasant farmers would be happy to completely forego cattle ownership: indeed there may be a case for including cattle in the farming system even where wildlife exploitation is the predominant land use. Multi-species animal production systems of this type are currently being investigated in Zimbabwe under the auspices of a project funded by the Worldwide Fund for Nature (summing, 1988). The project will be examining the economic viability of these schemes in 1989.
46. Where wildlife utilization is the best use for land of low agricultural productivity, this will generally remain the case after tsetse control. Tsetse control and the introduction of cattle, properly managed, should not be perceived as a 'threat' to wildlife utilization where this is indeed the best economic activity and recognized as such by the local community.
47. There are however other potential conflicts between livestock and wildlife utilization in Zimbabwe, mainly relating to government policies for control of foot-and-mouth disease. These policies are outside the scope of this paper but of considerable importance in view of Zimbabwe's beef export trade with the EEC under the Lome Convention. Closer liaison between government departments and other organizations concerned respectively with livestock and wildlife could contribute to a more unified approach to development planning in the semiarid areas.
