Situated at the end of Zambia’s Great Rift Valley, the Luangwa Valley has ecological riches but pervasive poverty. Poaching and subsistence farming of maize and sorghum are the main livelihoods. Increasingly, families are also relying on cash crops, such as cotton and tobacco, rendering them less able to meet their own food needs. Poor farming practices, such as slash and burn agriculture, and erratic rainfall have degraded soils, forcing farmers to find new land. This in turn contributed to deforestation of nearby national forests and parks, which are home to diverse wildlife including wildebeest, waterbuck, hartebeest, roan, kudu, eland, and elephants. The poorest families also generate extra income by selling charcoal made by felling trees, which contributes to forest degradation. Finally, to compensate for staplecrops shortages, subsistence farmers have typically relied on poaching. Illegally hunted meat is exchanged for food produced by more successful farmers. According to Wildlife Conservation Society’s (WCS) population surveys conducted in the late 1990s, annual household income in the Luangwa Valley was about $80.1 In sharp contrast, a selected sample of 88 individuals involved in illegal hunting had incomes averaging $320. Such higher returns combined with the above mentioned factors have resulted in a dramatic decline in Zambia’s wildlife population