Conservation-led Development as Violence: CAMPFIRE,Human–Wildlife Conflicts and Development in Kanyemba

Abstract

For the marginalised Tembo Mvura people of Kanyemba, Northern Zimbabwe, the promise of development clashes with the reality of everyday violence. This paper presents that conservation-led development in Kanyemba has been experienced as a form of violence, loss and exclusion. Drawing on ethnographic research, including semi-structured interviews and observation, the paper analyses the community’s dismissal of CAMPFIRE as a key site for this conflict. This paper uses a post-development theoretical lens to demonstrate how CAMPFIRE invalidates local knowledge and perpetuates exclusion. It challenges dominant successful conservation-led development narratives by focusing on the lived experiences of the Tembo Mvura.

Introduction

The Tembo Mvura people of Kanyemba live at the intersection of development promises and everyday violence. The Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE, hereafter) was once celebrated as a model of community-based conservation and sustainable livelihoods. On the ground, however, it has often unfolded as injury, exclusion, and loss. As Peter, ¹ a resident, asked, ‘Should development mean getting injured and killed by animals? If that is development, my family and I do not want it’. His question frames the dilemma at the centre of this paper.

CAMPFIRE emerged as part of independent Zimbabwe’s broader experiment with participatory development and decentralisation agenda (Murombedzi, 1999; Murphree, 1993). Across Southern Africa, similar Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) initiatives emerged. They were part of a neoliberal, conservation-led development paradigm that aimed to connect conservation with market mechanisms (Büscher and Dressler, 2012; Logan and Moseley, 2002). The CBNRM initiatives were centred on participatory discourse (Roe et al., 2009). Unlike traditional top-down methods, participatory development encouraged local communities to participate in planning, decision-making, and implementation, thereby promoting local knowledge, ownership, and self-determination (Connell, 1997; Mohan, 2014). However, as this paper argues, CAMPFIRE in Kanyemba has reproduced older logics of control and marginalisation, privileging elites at the same time, exposing marginalised communities to new forms of harm.

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork including semi-structured interviews, vignettes and participant observation, the paper demonstrates how conservation in Kanyemba has generated livelihood losses, human injuries and fatalities, elite capture of benefits, and the erosion of indigenous ecologies. These lived realities diverge from official narratives of sustainable development. This paper approaches CBNRM as contested terrain where power, knowledge, and ontology are continuously negotiated (Neumann, 2005). Focusing on the voices and lived experiences of the Tembo Mvura, historically marginalised in both state and conservation discourse, this paper offers a critique of mainstream conservation-led development practices. The paper aligns with recent calls to rethink conservation by recognising the political and historical dimensions of land and wildlife governance (Kaltenborn and Linnell, 2022; Nustad, 2015; Shackleton et al., 2023). This paper presents CAMPFIRE as a vehicle of violence, raising the question of whether conservation-led development brings any meaningful benefits to those it claims to serve.

Study site and methods

Study area map 1.

This study was conducted in Kanyemba, a 300 km² ward located in the Lower Middle Zambezi Valley, in Mashonaland Central, Zimbabwe (Bola et al., 2014; Jani et al., 2020). Kanyemba falls under the jurisdiction of the Mbire Rural District Council (MRDC) and has a population of 3,773 people (ZIMSTAT, 2022). The ward lies at the confluence of the Mwanzamtanda and Zambezi rivers and borders three wildlife areas: the Dande Safari Area to the east, the Chewore Game Safari Area to the west, and the Chitsere Conservancy, a non-hunting conservancy established in 2017 on the west bank of the Mwanzamtanda River. The absence of fencing between these protected zones and nearby settlements allows for the free movement of wildlife.

Kanyemba has broadly two ethnic groups, the Tembo Mvura and the Chikunda. The Tembo Mvura, sometimes referred to as the Doma or ‘two-toed people’ because of a hereditary condition affecting some members, prefer their totemic name Tembo Mvura (Maheve, 2025). The two groups are separated by the Mwanzamtanda River, a natural boundary as shown on the map of the study area. The Tembo Mvura community is situated on the western side, with settlement dating back to between 1840 and 1865 (Maheve, 2025). Following Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980, national land reform and conservation policies reshaped settlement and land-use patterns. The Tembo Mvura were instructed to vacate their ancestral mountain territories to make way for wildlife preservation (Jani, 2022; Maheve, 2025). This enforced relocation represents spatialised violence, a physical manifestation of what Galtung (1969) calls structural violence. This directive encountered opposition from the Tembo Mvura. Their resistance, rooted in the sacred significance of the mountains, led to a compromise permitting them to establish Mariga village on the western riverbank (Marindo-Ranganai and Zaba, 1995). Population growth later resulted in the formation of two additional settlements, Chiramba and Chagurika.

The spatial and socio-ecological characteristics of Kanyemba directly informed the research design. Fieldwork employed a qualitative, ethnographic approach aimed at capturing local interpretations of the CAMPFIRE, development interventions and the lived experiences of HWC. Data collection was conducted in two phases: March to July 2022 and August 2023, to coincide with periods of riverine gardening. Conducting research during the riverine gardening season enabled the observation of HWC at a time of peak interaction between people and wildlife. Methods included participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and informal conversations. A total of 69 interviews were conducted, though this paper draws on 15 in-depth interviews (10 men and 5 women) from Chiramba and Mariga villages. Participants were purposively selected based on long-term residence, direct engagement with CAMPFIRE, and experience with wildlife-related incidents. Interviews were conducted in chiShona. All interviews were translated and transcribed with attention to linguistic nuance and cultural context. Follow-up probes were developed iteratively based on participant responses (Bremborg, 2011; Roulston and Choi, 2018).

Community entry adhered to customary protocol, beginning with a visit to the headmen in Chiramba and Mariga villages. Before each interview, participants received detailed explanations of the study’s aims and procedures, and both written and verbal consent were obtained in accordance with ethical guidelines (Flick, 2018). Ethical clearance (Reference number 2022-5272-7339) was granted by the Rhodes University Research Ethics Committee (RU HREC). Given the sensitivity of issues of wildlife governance and CAMPFIRE benefits distribution, pseudonyms were used to protect the identities of all participants.

CAMPFIRE

In Southern Rhodesia, wildlife conservation was largely controlled by private landowners, whose primary interests were hunting and commercial exploitation (Chigonda, 2018; Mutwira, 1989; Nattrass, 2021). Early legal frameworks, such as the Game Laws under the British South Africa Company (1890–1923), sought to regulate hunting by requiring permits. However, weak enforcement allowed illegal hunting to persist, particularly in marginal regions (Chigonda, 2018). By the 1930s, the colonial government established game reserves, including Wankie (now Hwange), Victoria Falls, Kazuma Pan, and Matobo National Park, covering a total of 5,780 square miles (Mutwira, 1989). The Natural Resources Act of 1941 introduced conservation committees to protect wildlife and criminalise unauthorised hunting. However, these measures failed to curb overexploitation outside protected areas (Marindo-Ranganai and Zaba, 1995). The Parks and Wildlife Act of 1975 was introduced, granting private landowners, primarily white farmers, the legal authority to manage wildlife on their properties (Balint and Mashinya, 2008). The Act reinforced privatisation, silently neglecting communal areas. In 1978, the Southern Rhodesian Government launched the Wildlife Industries New Development for All (WINDFALL) programme, promoting commercial wildlife ranching on communal lands to mitigate human–wildlife conflict and restore ecosystems (Logan and Moseley, 2002; Muyengwa and Child, 2017). The idea behind the WINDFALL programme was to ensure that people receive benefits for helping to protect wildlife.

Following Zimbabwe’s independence (in 1980), the government amended the Parks and Wildlife Act in 1982 to decentralise wildlife management to communal communities (Child, 1996; Muyengwa and Child, 2017). CAMPFIRE can be seen as a post-independence CBNRM initiative that expanded on the earlier WINDFALL pilot, which had been initiated under the late-colonial administration (Child, 1993; Muboko and Murindagomo, 2014; Murphree, 2004). CAMPFIRE allowed rural communities to own (through the Appropriate Authority) and benefit from wildlife through tourism, trophy hunting, and sustainable resource use. It was one of the first projects to consider wildlife as a renewable natural resource and address the allocation of its ownership to indigenous people in and around conservation-protected areas (Balint and Mashinya, 2008; Tchakatumba et al., 2019).

Recent scholarship has demonstrated that CAMPFIRE’s outcome vary across Zimbabwe, with patterns of exclusion, elite capture, and uneven benefit distribution recurring across different contexts. The edited volume by Utete and Matanzima (2024) brings together multi-site analysis of CAMPFIRE and related conservation regimes, showing that while the programme was framed as participatory, its implementation frequently reproduced hierarchies of authority and marginalised ordinary residents. case studies from across the Zambezi valley and other regions illustrate how decentralisation was often recentralised through RDCs and traditional authorities, limiting meaningful community control over wildlife resources. These findings situate CAMPFIRE as a contested governance framework whose impacts have been shaped by local power and institutional design.

CAMPFIRE in Kanyemba

CAMPFIRE was introduced in Zimbabwe in 1989, initially piloted in two districts: Nyaminyami and Guruve (Child, 1991; Murphree, 1993; Muyengwa and Child, 2017). At that time, the Guruve district encompassed what is now known as Mbire District (then Lower Guruve) and the area now known as Guruve (Upper Guruve). The programme’s implementation in Angwa and Masoka (part of lower Guruve) in 1989, and following its success there, Kanyemba became the next area to adopt CAMPFIRE within the same period. Masoka is located south of Kanyemba, and they share a boundary. There are some Tembo Mvura people who stay in the area and are related to those in Kanyemba. The extension of CAMPFIRE to Kanyemba was driven by the success of the programme in Masoka. When the idea of CAMPFIRE was first introduced to the residents of Kanyemba, it was met with a mixture of enthusiasm and scepticism. Juwa, ² a resident, recalled that the programme was ultimately welcomed largely due to the visible success it had achieved in Masoka. Jivas, ³ another community member, noted that they eventually welcomed CAMPFIRE because their relatives in Masoka reported receiving meat.

When the idea was first proposed, the Tembo Mvura people viewed the programme with suspicion, fearing it might threaten their traditional way of life and livelihood. They were concerned about losing control over the animals if modern conservation methods replaced their traditional practices. Sabhuku B ⁴ remembers that the people were afraid of losing their hunting freedoms and control over animals. The people’s fear soon came true when they were told that they would not be allowed to hunt. However, the people were convinced by both the CAMPFIRE people ⁵ and their Masoka neighbours that they would have meat from the trophy-hunted animals. Beyond the provision of meat, they received dividends, known locally as ‘mari yemakanda’ (animal skin money). Rex, ⁶ a member of the first Masoka CAMPFIRE committee, praised the project’s transformative effects in the area, including the construction of new school buildings and the erection of fences. For the people of Mariga village, who lacked basic infrastructure such as a clinic, school, roads and ‘proper’ houses, the promises made by CAMPFIRE were compelling. They were assured that the programme’s central tenet, Appropriate Authority, meant they would retain control over the animals in their vicinity. Appropriate Authority intended to ensure the local communities’ participation in decision-making regarding the use of their surrounding resources (Murphree, 1993; see also Hitchcock and Kelly, 2023). In reality, Appropriate authority was centralised within RDCs (see Phiri et al., 2024).

Post-development theory: development as discourse and violence

Post-development theory views development as a discourse that organises global hierarchies of power and knowledge. Scholars such as Escobar (1995), Ferguson (1994), and Ziai (2004, 2017) demonstrate that development operates through representational and institutional mechanisms that construct the Global South as lacking, backwards, and in need of Western intervention. This framing legitimises the export of Eurocentric models of modernity, which restructure economies and social relations in ways that reproduce dependency and undermine local autonomy. Escobar (1984) and Latouche (1993) argue that the promise of development progress is inseparable from the process of erasure, as described by Cowen and Shenton (1996) as the destruction of the old to make way for the new. From this perspective, development functions less as a project of improvement than as an extension of colonial governmentality, sustaining a world that privileges Western epistemologies and institutions (Rist, 2019; Shiva, 1993).

CAMPFIRE in Kanyemba exemplifies how development discourse functions as a technology of control and dispossession. Framed as participatory conservation, CAMPFIRE positioned rural communities as stakeholders in wildlife management. However, in practice, it embeds asymmetrical power relations between local populations, state authorities and conservation agencies. The resulting transformation aligns with Galtung’s (1969) conceptualisation of structural violence, which is harm that is systematically produced through unequal social arrangements. Loss of access to resources, exclusion from decision-making processes, as well as loss, constitute manifestations of structural violence. Following Ferguson’s (1994) analysis of development as an anti-politics machine, CAMPFIRE depoliticises questions of inequality and dispossession by translating them into technical problems of resource management. The Tembo Mvura’s experiences demonstrate Duffy’s (2014) description of the silencing of local ontologies of human experiences in favour of an external model that privileges markets over people. By approaching CAMPFIRE through a post-development lens, the paper situates HWC as an outcome of development practices.

Findings

Development as violence

Human–wildlife conflict in Kanyemba is a constitutive part of development, not a side effect. Crop losses, injuries and deaths that residents endure reveal how development itself materialises as violence. This section examines these experiences through the lenses of structural violence (Farmer, 2004; Galtung, 1969) and green violence (Büscher and Ramutsindela, 2016; Duffy, 2014), showing that development, in its material and ideological forms, has rendered Tembo Mvura vulnerable to physical harm, dispossession, and loss. World Wildlife Fund (2004) defines HWC as negative outcomes, including loss of property, livelihoods, or loss arising from human–wildlife encounters. Mekonen (2020) notes that conflicts arise when the needs and behaviours of wildlife harm humans and when human actions compromise wildlife’s well-being. These definitions emphasise mutual interference. However, Tembo Mvura members describe HWC in terms of one-sided descriptions and danger. Paul ⁷ defines it as the loss of food security due to animals raiding gardens. Sabhuku C ⁸ describes HWC as the phenomenon where wildlife attacks cause injury and death. Benjamin ⁹ adds a spatial dimension, identifying gardens as key contact zones. These local perspectives foreground lived experiences over abstract definitions.

The perspective on the importance of wildlife varies depending on the person viewing it. Ecologists and conservationists view the African lion (Panthera Leo), the African elephant (Loxodonta Africana), and the Cape buffalo (Syncerus caffer) as in need of protection. Safari operators and RDC officials view animals as sources of revenue. However, the Tembo Mvura view animals differently. Lions are viewed as guardians of the spiritual realm. Elephants and buffalo are viewed mostly as agricultural pests and threats to human life. Residents of the Okavango Delta (DeMotts and Hoon, 2012), Tonga-Goba people (Matanzima, 2022) and Masoka people (Jani et al., 2024) view elephants as daily sources of fear and loss (pests to be precise). Such a disconnection in understanding animals is an instance of epistemic violence.

One leading explanation for increased HWC is population growth near protected areas. The expansion of human settlements intensifies competition for land and resources, thereby escalating conflict (Nyhus, 2016; Woodroffe et al., 2005). This explanation does not apply in Kanyemba, where census data shows a minimal population growth (ZIMSTAT, 2022). Rather, agricultural land clearance, often conflated with population growth, has been a key driver of human–wildlife conflict. As Baisai recalled, the first land clearance occurred between 2002 and 2004, stopped, and then resumed in 2018. The official stance, as reported in The Herald (Lupande, 2020), was to transform the region into a green belt. The state’s insistence on framing land transformation as a technical project to create a green belt can be viewed as Ferguson’s (1994) anti-politics machine in action. Ferguson argues that development projects often present political decisions as neutral, technical fixes, which obscure the power relations and conflicts involved. Categorising land transformation as a greenbelt similarly cast it as an apolitical environmental initiative, masking the state’s and economic interests behind the language of technical improvement. The state’s policy language of productivity obscures its coercive functions.

Agricultural expansion shifted conflict from state and private-managed areas into gardens and homesteads. Tembo Mvura and Chikunda were briefly employed during the land clearance process. However, the consequences of land clearance soon surfaced. As Brian ¹⁰ explained, ‘We cleared the fields, now we have to protect our fields from the displaced animals’. Maitei ¹¹ added, ‘The animals that used to stay and graze at the new fields now stay and graze in our gardens’. These testimonies are both complaints and critical commentaries on the contradictions of development. They reveal a local awareness that what the state calls progress has reconfigured danger, relocating risk from wilderness to homestead. Development becomes, in Nixon’s (2011) sense, a form of slow violence, which is a drawn-out attrition that erodes livelihoods and autonomy while maintaining the façade of improvement. Outside of land for agriculture, the establishment of Chitsere Conservancy in 2017 altered the interaction between people and the environment. The official stance is that the conservancy was established in Kanyemba to rejuvenate the fast-depleting animal population. This assertion was dismissed by both the residents of Kanyemba and a safari operator. ¹² Gathered evidence indicated that the decision to establish a conservancy was made by the chief and the RDC, without consultation with the people. The decision on what is best for the people highlights the exclusionary aspect of development.

People’s livelihoods are threatened, and mobility is restricted. In the event of an attack, the official stance is that people are now settling in animal corridors (see also Jani et al., 2024), evading responsibility. ¹³ In an interview with Moyo, ¹⁴ a buffalo attack victim, he remembers.

The animal was wounded in a lion attack in those mountains (Karuvaya), and it sought refuge here. A buffalo charged at my son, who was coming from the garden. He ran, shouting that a buffalo was charging at him. My wife and daughter ran into the hut, my son ran into the shed, and I hid behind the shed. My wife shouted that I should get into the hut we had just finished building. I dashed, the animal saw me, and it caught my arm as I dove into the room. The impact of the animal took the door off the hinges, and the door fell on top of me. The animal entered the hut looking for me. When it did not see me, it left. My wife and children were not sure if I had died because I was not making any sound. We sought help from CAMPFIRE and MRDC. It took the MRDC three days to come here. The animal is still roaming the forest as it is.

This incident occurred in a non-hunting area. By virtue of its occurring in a hunting zone, the animal could not be killed because it belonged to a conservancy. While this may make sense to the conservationist, it is a letdown to the victims and the community. Moyo’s attack should be viewed as an incident that reveals a broader conservation logic. The immediate facts, an animal attack, and a three-day delay, are symptoms of a system that privileges conservation boundaries, displacing human security. This pattern aligns with Li’s (2007) argument about the will to improve, where interventions reorganise space and people to fit a modernising logic. The legal protection surrounding the conservancy creates a spatial immunity for animals, converting biological recovery into human exposure, a dynamic documented by critiques of CAMPFIRE and conservancy expansion (see Jani et al., 2023).

Development as loss

Development in Kanyemba has taken the form of physical, structural and spatial violence. Conservation and agricultural expansion have remapped land use in the name of progress, pushing animals into human settlements and silencing the suffering of the affected communities. The creation of Chitsere Conservancy reshaped conflict management by banning the killing of animals (even problem animals) on the western side of the Mwanzamtanda River. Residents note that the animals appear to have ‘learned’ this spatial immunity. The realisation of the immunity led to an increase in animals ravaging people’s gardens without consequence. As Danai ¹⁵ noted, people resent development (CAMPFIRE) more because animals have become more important than people. HWC extends beyond animal attacks to the systematic destruction of fields and gardens, which are essential sources of food and income (Gandiwa et al., 2013; Shereni et al., 2022). The destruction of fields and gardens is becoming an attritional harm that is unfolding over time and is embedded in the very logic of development.

The gardens along the Mwanzamtanda River in Kanyemba have become arenas of dual conflict: direct attacks on people and the destruction of crops. Elephant attacks on people are rare, but they do occur. Buffalo often charge at people guarding their gardens, and crocodiles along the river are the frequent assailants. Felix ¹⁶ recounted how he narrowly survived an attack by an injured elephant that had entered his garden. In trying to chase it away, he placed himself between the elephant and its calf, and the mother charged. He fell among the sweet potato vines, escaping with an injured leg. Felix shared his experience at the site where a young bull had been shot on the eastern side of the Mwanzamtana River (where hunting and killing are allowed).

During fieldwork, three crocodile attacks were reported at the gardens. Riverine gardening along the Mwanzamtanda River happens between March and October or November, and people use residual water from the pools for irrigation. The victims were attacked as they fetched water. Two victims had minor injuries because the reptiles were not big. Rodgers, ¹⁷ the third victim, however, had to seek medical attention in Zambia. He narrated that the reptile had been seen on numerous occasions, and a report had been made at Majaya (CAMPFIRE offices), with no action taken. He was watering his garden when the reptile caught him and dragged him into the pool. His uncle, Peter, heard him scream, ran and poked the reptile in the eye, until it let him go. In an interview with Peter

After the attack, we passed through the office (CAMPFIRE office) asking for money to go to a clinic in Zambia. They did not have any money. We borrowed the money to use, and now we have to repay it. Should development mean getting injured and killed by animals? If that is development, my family and I do not want development. We are tired of being told about development, and we continue to be injured. Is development worth the loss we are enduring?

The disjuncture between the promise of development and lived experiences in Kanyemba reveals how violence is embedded in the structure of conservation-led development. The unfulfilled promises of compensation (or at least covering the medical expenses) and safety are manifestations of structural violence where institutional inaction perpetuates harm by denying or delaying redress. The victims of the crocodile attacks needed time to recuperate, and in the meantime, they could not work in the gardens (which are seasonal), hence incurring a loss. The absence of a fence to protect people from animals has made it easier for animals to attack both people and their gardens. ¹⁸ What has emerged so far is physical, structural and spatial violence, which manifests as injuries, a loss of land, money, security, and trust in institutions. Residents losses have been exacerbated by the lack of compensation or any form of redress. Loss in Kanyemba extends beyond damaged gardens or injured bodies. It represents the dismantling of relational worlds. What the state measures as environmental restoration translates locally into hunger, displacement, and exclusion.

Development and exclusion

Tembo Mvura associates CAMPFIRE with the exclusion of ordinary people and the capture of benefits by elites for themselves. The exclusion is broad, encompassing decision-making and benefits sharing. Jani et al. (2023) argue that communities, such as the Doma, were excluded from wildlife governance by political elites, local authorities, and conservation agencies. Elephants and buffalo are the most problematic animals in Kanyemba. Their management is overseen by a joint response team of ZimParks and the Anti-Poaching Unit (APU). Before CAMPFIRE, the Tembo Mvura people regulated human–wildlife conflict through spiritual and communal practices. In the past, the community responded to the death of a person at the ‘hands’ of animals by retaliatory killing. Shanda ¹⁹ recalled how men would form groups and hunt down the killer animal. The people believed that the retaliatory killing of a dangerous animal affirmed human authority and allowed the deceased’s spirit to rest. Such actions are now illegal. The Tembo Mvura, however, feel the customs should still be applicable in the present day. Jani et al. (2023) argue that these forms of indigenous governance were displaced to justify top-down control.

The customary systems were replaced with a slow, bureaucratic process that distances decision-making from those affected by wildlife incursions. While residents report threats and losses to local offices, authority over lethal control rests with ZimParks, which prioritise revenue generation over community safety (Mupangwa et al., 2006; Taylor, 2009). Every elephant, lion, or buffalo is treated as a potential tourism asset, which encourages officials to insist that lethal force be a last resort. Communities are required to deploy non-lethal deterrents such as firecrackers and chilli bombs, even when these measures lose effectiveness. As Kuswa ²⁰ explained, chilli bombs were abandoned because animals quickly adapted, and the deterrents often harmed people as well. Occasional APU gunfire to scare animals rarely protects fields or gardens. This presents wildlife management as a technical administration that shields responsible authorities (RDC, ZimParks) from accountability.

When a decision to kill a problem animal is finally made, the subsequent meat-sharing process reveals entrenched hierarchies that reproduce and perpetuate exclusion. In principle, meat from every killed problem animal should be divided equally among Kanyemba’s 3,773 residents (ZIMSTAT 2022). However, observations confirm that in practice, the chief’s ²¹ and the CAMPFIRE committee’s portion is allocated first before the people get a share. Jani et al. (2023) show that elites benefit from conservation. The people miss out on the meat, the only remaining benefit. As Maria, an elderly Tembo Mvura woman who had walked 20 kilometres, lamented,

This (chaos) is normal. Our people have always come after the Chikunda in every distribution of benefits. They determine who gets what, and they keep meat for the chief and the committee, compared to what is shared among the people. These animals pose a problem in our community, and we expect to benefit more than anyone else.

Maria’s reflection exposes how exclusion under CAMPFIRE is both material and epistemic. While some customs from the past have been discontinued, the chief’s portion of meat has been continued, thus signalling epistemic exclusion. The hierarchical distribution of meat exemplifies a situation in which elites use their authority to define participation and allocate benefits (see Shackleton et al., 2023). The distribution of meat, revenues, and even infrastructure (which is concentrated on the Chikunda area) demonstrates a misalignment between those who bear the burdens of conservation and who enjoy its benefits. The exclusion can also be understood in terms of social groupings. The Chikunda have benefitted more from CAMPFIRE. This exclusion of people based on grouping is also evident in Dzingirai’s (2003) study of the Ndebele people in Binga, where they were excluded from CAMPFIRE benefits.

The exclusion of the Tembo Mvura also operates through the dismissal of their ways of understudying human-animal relations. Matanzima (2024) argues that the Tonga people interpreted increased lion attacks as a form of ancestral punishment for moral or ritual infractions. In Mbire, there is a belief that disregarding local knowledges, violating sacred landscapes, and improperly killing lions invite ancestral retaliation (see also Matema and Andersson, 2015). Varaidzo ²² explained that animal attacks occur because sacred landscapes are repeatedly violated. This perspective made sense in the context of the lion killings in 2010–2011. ²³ In Mbire communities, lion attacks were interpreted as punishment from Mhondoro for allowing outsiders to dominate wildlife governance and violate taboos (Auret, 1982; Garbett, 1969; Matema and Andersson, 2015). People believe that adherence to these beliefs fosters a harmonious relationship between people and the natural world (see also Matanzima, 2024). A game warden (who had killed some members of the pride) was killed by a lion during the 2010–2011 lion attacks. Tinei ²⁴ explained that his death was an ancestral retribution because he was not ritually cleansed to kill the Mhondoro. These beliefs are continuously dismissed, presenting an exclusion of other knowledges. When ‘experts’ dismiss these interpretations, they enact what Spivak (1988) describes as epistemic violence, the silencing of subaltern knowledge.

Experiences of the people with CAMPFIRE exemplify the core critiques of post-development theory. The pattern reinforces a broader structural violence: a Western conservation model displaces indigenous ontologies and community authority. The programme is perceived as a form of violent elitism as it operates within a dominant development discourse that excludes local knowledges. Chigaba ²⁵ stated that CAMPFIRE prioritised animals over or alongside human beings. Exclusion, as highlighted, operates through unequal benefit sharing and the very frameworks that determine whose knowledge is considered rational and whose is deemed backwards, thereby confirming post-development critiques of participatory development as a renewed mode of domination.

Anti-poachers violence

The Tembo Mvura have long been labelled as poachers by the MRDC, ZimParks, CAMPFIRE authorities and the Anti-Poaching Unit (APU). Such labelling constitutes marginalisation and a form of structural and physical violence, as it legitimises punitive conservation practice, surveillance, exclusion, arrest and physical abuse. Labelling becomes a discursive act of power that transforms subsistence livelihoods into criminal acts. As Jani et al. (2024) argue, this characterisation socially constructs the Tembo Mvura as enemies of conservation, legitimising their dehumanisation, harassment, and persecution. Comparable processes occur elsewhere in the region. Weldemichel (2020) documents how Maasai pastoralists are cast as ‘invaders’ and ‘foreigners’, categories that enable state authorities to justify evictions, home burnings and the use of force. The Tembo Mvura ‘s rights have been trampled because they are viewed as not belonging. In both the Mid-Zambezi Valley and Tanzania, the othering (as a poacher or invader) serves as a political technology that produces a subject to be disciplined, justifying coercive conservation practices and furthering the remaking of boundaries.

The distinction between subsistence and commercial poaching reveals how deeply these narratives distort reality (Duffy, 2000). The Tembo Mvura’s gathering and foraging are acts of survival within customary practice, not profit-driven crime. Anti-poaching legislation has blurred the boundary between customary subsistence practice and profit-driven poaching, thereby justifying the criminalisation of everyday livelihood activities. The Tembo Mvura have been treated as if they were involved in high-level wildlife trafficking. Tonde ²⁶ narrated how arrests often have nothing to do with hunting (poaching), but with cutting down trees for shelter, collecting honey, tubers or firewood, all of which are customary livelihood practices. The criminalisation of such practices perpetuates colonial patterns of control by undermining and delegitimising African subsistence economies under the guise of wildlife protection (see also Neumann, 1998).

The violence extends beyond labelling to physical abuse. Arrests are frequently conducted before investigations. Local men are detained and beaten on the presumption of guilt. Tinei reported that even possession of wires, used in both domestic and hunting contexts (to set snares), is interpreted as conclusive proof of poaching intent. The incentive structure within conservation enforcement exacerbates the situation. Conservancy owners reportedly reward scouts for the number of snares removed and arrests made, creating a culture of over-enforcement. This renders the Tembo Mvura perpetual suspects, a living embodiment of the problem population that development (read conservationist) seeks to discipline. CAMPFIRE is experienced as a mechanism of coercion and surveillance (Jani et al., 2024). The violence is as epistemic as it is physical, foreclosing the recognition that subsistence hunting and responsible environmental stewardship can coexist with conservation.

Discussion: CAMPFIRE through a post-development lens, exclusion, and the production of violence

This paper has demonstrated that human–wildlife conflict in Kanyemba cannot be explained solely as an ecological problem or a failure of implementation. Viewed through a post-development theoretical lens, the conflict emerges as an outcome of conservation-led development itself. CAMPFIRE is understood as an institutional project that reorganises power, knowledge and belonging. CAMPFIRE failed to include the Tembo Mvura. It also produced exclusion by defining what counts as legitimate knowledge, who can exercise authority and whose suffering is rendered acceptable in the name of development. Post-development scholarship argues that development operates as a regime of representation, constructing certain populations as backward, irrational, or deficient, thereby legitimising intervention and control (Escobar, 1995; Ziai, 2017). CAMPFIRE exemplifies this dynamic. Framed as participatory conservation, it presents rural communities as beneficiaries and stewards of wildlife. In practice, it embeds wildlife governance within state-aligned hierarchies that privilege bureaucratic expertise, market logics, and external authority. This paper has shown that participation functions more as a performance than as a redistribution of power, echoing Ferguson’s (1994) argument that development depoliticises inequality by translating it into technical management problems.

The persistence of elite capture in Kanyemba reflects a structural logic. As documented in other areas, CAMPFIRE’s early promise eroded as authority consolidated among councillors, chiefs, RDC officials, and some private operators (see Balint and Mashinya, 2006, 2008; Mapedza and Bond, 2006; Muyengwa and Child, 2017; Rihoy et al., 2010). Kanyemba reproduces these patterns almost exactly. CAMPFIRE committees remain intact in form; however, authority is substantially hollow. Local representatives enforce conservation rules and manage conflict, but they lack the power to redirect priorities or secure protection and compensation for residents. What is produced is a governance paradox where authority is visible at the local level, while accountability is displaced upwards, insulating higher-level institutions from responsibility. This is a feature of development governance. The institutional design of CAMPFIRE, including the requirement that councillors chair committees, conflates political and administrative authority in a way that facilitates misuse while foreclosing meaningful community control. The reported collusion between local elites, Mbire RDC, ZimParks and Safari operators in the allocation of wildlife leases illustrates how development operates through exclusionary alliances. The Tembo Mvura are positioned to be governed rather than as actors with claims over land, wildlife, and decision-making.

Human–wildlife conflict in Kanyemba, therefore, must be read as a manifestation of structural violence rather than an unintended ecological consequence. A body of scholarship has shown that conflict in Zimbabwe is rooted in land dispossession, conservation zoning, and postcolonial governance arrangements (Alexander and McGregor, 2000; Dzingirai, 2003; Jani et al., 2024). The Kanyemba case reinforces this argument by showing how risk is decentralised to households, while control over wildlife, land, and revenue remains centralised within external institutions. Residents are compelled to co-exist with dangerous animals, yet they lack access to compensation, effective mitigation, or meaningful influence over wildlife policy. Violence emerges from wildlife as well as from political and administrative decisions that prioritise revenue and biodiversity over human safety. This dynamic helps explain why hostility towards animals is so pronounced. Studies show that tolerance for wildlife increases where CAMPFIRE is perceived as transparent and inclusive, while resentment grows where benefits are withheld (Gandiwa et al., 2013; Matseketsa et al., 2018). In Kanyemba, hostility towards Buffalo and elephants reflects exclusion from benefits and decision-making rather than an inherent rejection of conservation. Animals become symbols through which grievances against institutions are expressed. What appears as human–wildlife conflict is inseparable from human-human conflict structured by unequal power relations, as argued by Jani (2025).

Crucially, CAMPFIRE’s exclusion operates both materially and epistemically. Post-development theory emphasises that development marginalises alternative ways of knowing by privileging Western scientific rationality and bureaucratic expertise (Escobar, 1995; Rist, 2019). In Kanyemba, Tembo Mvura cosmologies, which understand human–animal relations through ancestral, spiritual, and moral frameworks, are systematically dismissed as superstition. This constitutes epistemic violence in Spivak’s (1988) sense, where subaltern knowledge is rendered unintelligible within dominant institutions. Similar processes are documented among the Tonga of Mola, who interpret human–wildlife conflict as resulting from ritual and moral transgression rather than ecological imbalance (Matanzima, 2024). The delegitimisation of Tembo Mvura knowledge mirrors what Shiva (1993) describes as the monoculture of modernity, where a singular vision of progress displaces plural ontologies. CAMPFIRE governance recognises only those knowledges that align with conservation science and market-based valuation of wildlife. Indigenous practices of co-existence, retaliation and spiritual regulation are criminalised or ignored even as communities bear the material cost of conservation. This epistemic hierarchy reinforces exclusion by defining whose interpretations of conflict are considered valid and whose are not.

CAMPFIRE in Kanyemba operates more as a mechanism of governance than a tool for empowerment, disciplining marginal populations. Development promises are sustained rhetorically, yet they rely on the continued exposure of the Tembo Mvura to danger, loss and insecurity. Violence against people and against knowledge are intertwined. The programme invalidates local ways of understanding human–wildlife relations while reproducing elite control over land, revenue and authority. The findings of this paper, therefore, contribute to a broader critique of conservation-led development. They show that human–wildlife conflict cannot be separated from the political economy of conservation or from epistemic exclusions that define development practice.

Conclusion

The paper has demonstrated that the development pursued through CAMPFIRE in Kanyemba is experienced as violence in varied forms. The paper highlights that what was presented as community participation and resource conservation conceals structural inequalities. The everyday realities of the Tembo Mvura reveal how bureaucratic systems, boundaries and conservation elites have reorganised vulnerabilities rather than reduced them. Violence appears in physical attacks and forced compliance as well as in the slow erosion of livelihood, dignity, customs and beliefs. The paper has argued that development in this context (conservation-led) is sustained through exclusion and control. The decision-making process privileged elites and external interests, while local knowledge and cosmologies were marginalised and disqualified. The paper has argued that conservation in Kanyemba has become a mode of governance that disciplines rather than empowers. The loss faced by residents is material, emotional and spiritual, signalling the unmaking of relational worlds in which people once lived with and through nature. Read alongside evidence from Binga, Kariba, Masoka, Mahenye, and other CAMPFIRE sites, the Kanyemba case demonstrates that conservation-led development in Zimbabwe has repeatedly functioned as a technology of governance that redistributes risk downwards while concentrating authority and benefits upwards. In conclusion, the paper presents CAMPIFRE as a vehicle for violence, exclusion, loss, and labelling, characterised with no redress to the victims of violence in its broader context.