Gary Magadzire School of Agriculture, Engineering and Natural Sciences

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    Contribution of Wildlife to Human Livelihoods and Economic Development in Communities Living Adjacent to Matusadona National Park, Zimbabwe
    (Great Zimbabwe University, 2023) Zvikonyaukwa Jesse
    In many African nations, wildlife has the potential to support livelihoods and economic development. Wildlife resources are crucial for enhancing human livelihood, reducing poverty, and increasing opportunities for rural and economic development. Contribution of wildlife resources towards economic development has been hindered by poor management caused mainly by humanwildlife conflicts. The study's objectives were to: (i) evaluate the influence of ecotourism to economic development of communities surrounding Matusadona National Park; (ii) assess the difficulties associated with managing wildlife resources in the Matusadona National park, (iii) explore economic developments offered by the use of wildlife resources in Matusadona National Park, and (iv) determine sustainable management practices which can be adopted to improve economic developments offered by the use of wildlife resources in Omay community. The study used questionnaires, interviews, focus group discussions, and secondary data sources to collect relevant information for the study. A sample of 140 participants was used with 100 (40%) randomly selected from a list of 250 households.According to the findings, 57% of participants were women. In Matusadona National Park, safari operations made up the majority (54.7%) of the ecotourism industry.The study results showed that most participants (80%) identified illegal killing of animal as a major challenge to the park authorities. The results also showed several benefits which were derived from the game park at household level but only one was supported officially. The benefit to community development from the game reserve were road works, with the majority of the participants from Negande (95%), Mahombekombe (64%) and Siakobvu (80%) acknowledging that activities in the game park contributed to road maintenance in their areas. Improvement of roads (51.4 %) was the only economic development which was supported equally from both methods of data collection. Majority of participants (59.3 %) indicated that construction of bridges was difficult and not supported by revenue from utilisation of wildlife resources. There is need to form community based natural resource management (CBNRM), involvement of local people and rural district council (RDC) in the decision making to improve economic development activities. It can be concluded that when sustainable management practices are adopted and put into practice, the use of wildlife resources can contribute more to economic development. It can be recommended that Matusadona National Park authorities must reconsider law enforcement strategies, engagement with local communities and increasing animal populations to boost tourism, resource utilisation and adopt sustainable management options for wildlife