Attachment_10,_Program_Description__Lowveld_Rhino_Trust.pdf

ATTACHMENT 2— PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

1. Development Response

Wildlife trafficking is a multi-billion dollar illicit business that is decimating Africa’s iconic animal populations. Many iconic species such as the African elephants and rhinoceroses face the risk of significant decline or even extinction. According to the IUCN African Elephant Status Report (2016)1, the African elephant population has declined by an estimated 111000 in the past decade primarily due to poaching and 5940 African rhinos have been killed since 2008 out of an estimated current population of 25 000.2 South Africa currently conserves 79% of Africa’s rhinos and suffered 85% of the crime with 5048 rhinos killed between 2008 and 2015.3 Efforts are being made to reverse the trends through international platforms such as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) which is a relevant tool for addressing international wildlife crime through monitoring, regulations or banning of international trade in species under threat. International momentum against wildlife crime has increased, with a number of actions and commitments from governments to combat wildlife trafficking. For instance, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution in 2015 committing countries to step up their collective efforts to address wildlife crime and put an end to the global poaching crisis.

At the heart of this international momentum and efforts to combat wildlife crimes is the development threat that wildlife trafficking poses to realizing sustainable development across the globe. It is a serious form of crime that undermines the economic prosperity of many countries, threatening their natural capital and undermining sustainable economic development including development benefits derived from legal nature based enterprises like tourism. Wildlife crime erodes social stability and cohesion and impoverishes citizens as their cultural and natural heritage is robbed. Natural resource dependent communities are exposed to security threats and destruction of their livelihoods.

Furthermore, between 40% and 85% of the SADC citizens live in rural areas where they rely heavily on natural resources for survival.4 The region has a rich natural heritage of global significance, including some of the planet’s largest intact populations of rhinos and elephants.

1 Thouless CR, Dublin HT, Blanc JJ, Skinner DP. Daniel TE, Taylor RD, Maisels F, Frederick HL and Bouche P (2016) African Elephant Status Report: An update from the African Elephant database. Occasional Paper Series of the IUCN Species Survival Commission, No. 60 IUCN/ SSC Africa Elephant Specialist Group. IUCN Gland, Switzerland

2 Department of Environmental AFAAirs (2016) Rhino poaching statistics update. Pretoria, South Africa.

https://www.environment.gov.za/projectsprogrammes/rhinodialogues/poaching_statistics

3 SADC (2015) SADC Law Enforcement and Anti-Poaching Strategy 2016 – 2021. Gaborone, Botswana

4 SADC (2015) SADC Law Enforcement and Anti-Poaching Strategy 2016 – 2021. Gaborone, Botswana

Natural resources are vitally important to the economy of the region and its growth.

Approximately US$3.2 billion was generated from nature-based tourism by 10 of the 14 SADC countries in 2000/2001.5 Wildlife tourism for instance, is an increasingly important and growing industry that brings benefits to national economies of the region and local people alike.

Decimating wildlife species and destroying natural ecosystems threatens such prosperous development sector and livelihood security. Organized criminal networks also threaten the peace and security of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region.

In Zimbabwe, the Communal Areas Management Program For Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE) is responsible for the conservation of some 50,000 km2 of natural habitat – equivalent in size to the National Parks Estate and providing important buffers to, and biological corridors between national and transboundary protected areas. Despite its current shambolic state, compounded by the profoundly depressed economy and tourism in Zimbabwe, CAMPFIRE generates net revenues of about US$2 million per annum across 13 Community Districts6.

Addressing wildlife trafficking in the region is necessary and relevant for generating prosperity and expanding development efforts within the SADC region. There is a need to strengthen enforcement in the region to combat wildlife crime. In particular, efforts to support regional coordination among enforcement agencies and to prioritize wildlife trafficking across enforcement, regulatory and intelligence agencies are needed. The reduction of corruption and improvement of transparency and accountability through the wildlife enforcement chain is also necessary. In addition, there is a need to support appropriate institutional capacities to be able to detect, deter and apprehend would-be poachers and dismantle criminal networks. There is also a need to strengthen capacities to prosecute and adjudicate crimes relating to wildlife trafficking.

It has also become evident that the success of wildlife crime prevention lies with effective local governance, management and engagement of communities. Expanded support is necessary to shift the incentives so that communities can legally and sustainably benefit from wildlife and to expand their role as effective conservation stewards.

2. Background

The SADC region is facing an unprecedented increase in the poaching of elephants and rhinos and other wildlife for illegal financial gains. The increased trend in poaching for elephants and rhinos is largely due to the high value of ivory and rhino horn on the international black market.

For instance, the market value of rhino horn is estimated to fetch between $60 000 to $80 000

5 Vernon R. Booth (2010): The contribution of hunting tourism: How significant is this to national economies in contribution of wildlife to national economies. Joint publication of FAO and CIC. Budapest. 72 pp.

6 Masterson C et al, 2016, Zimbabwe’s National Position Statement on the Role of Hunting in Biodiversity Conservation in Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe Ethics and Coordination Committee for Ethical and Sustainable Hunting in Zimbabwe.

per kilo ($30,000 per pound), a commodity that is more lucrative than gold and platinum.7 Illegal harvesting of other important species such as pangolins, lions, marine mammals, cycads, and turtles is also a concern in the region. Illegally harvested wildlife is traded on the black market as skins, leather goods or souvenirs, as food or traditional medicines, as pets and in many other forms.

Southern Africa is endowed with exceptional natural landscapes and wildlife, containing a rich diversity of species. The region supports the largest number of African elephants and biggest rhino population in the world, with the largest elephant population found in Botswana and South Africa boasting the highest number of rhinos. Other notable animals include lions, leopards, buffalo, and other antelopes occurring in large numbers. Wildlife is an important economic asset in the region contributing significantly to gross domestic product. The tragedy is that poverty remains one of the greatest challenges in the SADC region with approximately half of the population living on less than $1 a day.8 Of these poor people, between 40% and 85% live in rural areas where they rely heavily on natural resources for survival.9 If wildlife crimes continue unabated, the region will not only lose critical species and experience associated ecological erosion, but the impacts will be the hardest for poor communities who are heavily reliant on nature-based economies.

Within Zimbabwe, elephant poaching has been severe in the northern half of the country but relatively limited in the southern half (including the Lowveld region), where rhino poaching has however been underway at levels that reflect the fact that this region contains 84% of Zimbabwe’s total of approximately 850 rhinos (of both species), so this is where rhino poachers are most active. As large-tusked elephants become less available to poachers in the Sebungwe region and in some other areas of northern Zimbabwe, there may well be a new poaching focus on the Lowveld’s elephants, which needs to be forestalled through improved security.

7 CITES (2012) Annual Report. London

8 SADC (2016) Poverty Reduction and Policy Dialoque. http://www.sadc.int/themes/poverty-eradication-policy-dialogue/

9 SADC (2015) SADC Law Enforcement and Anti-Poaching Strategy 2016 – 2021. Gaborone, Botswana

FIG 1: RHINO POACHING LOSSES IN ZIMBABWE

FIG 2: RHINO POPULATIONS TRENDS IN ZIMBABWE

Addressing the illegal wildlife trade

To respond to this unprecedented poaching trend, the Southern African states recently adopted a region-wide SADC Law Enforcement and Anti-Poaching (LEAP) Strategy to tackle wildlife crime. Section 4: Regional Response detailed some of the key regional responses by the SADC community to address wildlife crime.

Approaches to address the illegal trade in wildlife span the enforcement continuum, from prevention and apprehension to prosecution and adjudication. Combating the illegal wildlife trade requires a holistic approach that combines stronger law enforcement, including crime prevention, with improved wildlife management. Furthermore, to achieve success, these efforts must include actors from across government, civil society, and the private sector and must be coordinated within countries and across geopolitical boundaries. Addressing the current crisis requires harmonized efforts incorporating on-the-ground, cross-border cooperation and a high-level enabling environment that prioritizes conserving wildlife for economic development and local, national, and regional stability. In addition, communities living near protected areas and other biodiversity hotspots who bear the costs of living with wildlife have not always shared in the benefits or participated in decision-making around wildlife management.

Collaboration with communities is critical to preventing poaching. Crime prevention approaches are based on identifying and addressing the drivers of wildlife crime. Without addressing the socio-political drivers that are motivating wildlife crime, strengthening law enforcement alone will be less successful. Partnerships and building trust between communities, civil society, business, and law enforcement is also critical to help develop community-oriented crime prevention approaches and support intelligence gathering, information sharing, and investigation of wildlife crimes. However, prevention approaches can only succeed when there is also effective and credible deterrence to continued illegal use of wildlife. This means capable, effective apprehension, prosecution, and adjudication combined with appropriate penalties for violators. Hand-in-hand with strengthening incentives and opportunities to promote wildlife conservation is strengthening the disincentives to participate in wildlife crime.

3. Geographic scope

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) aims to combat wildlife crime in the south-east Lowveld of Zimbabwe region and adjacent areas of Mozambique. This area of operation falls within the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Areas (GL-TFCA), an important landscape for conservation of key species. The GL-TFCA, linking protected areas in South Africa (Kruger National Park), Mozambique (Limpopo National Park) and Zimbabwe (Gonarezhou National Park), covers an area of approximately 35,000 square kilometers. The contribution of tourism revenue from protected areas to national, regional, and local economies is significant however wildlife crime remains a threat to the development agenda of the region.

Challenges in this landscape include pervasive poverty, worsening population-resource mismatch, community-conservation disconnect, low law enforcement capacity compounded by poor coordination, lack of accountability, corruption and the presence of crime syndicates trafficking wildlife products.

As summarized in Annex 1, the Lowveld Rhino Trust (LRT) operates in the Zimbabwe Lowveld region within the GL-TFCA (see Figure 3), with a concentration of rhino monitoring and management activities (mandated by the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority) in Save Valley Conservancy (SVC) and Bubye Valley Conservancy (BVC). LRT’s emphasis is on large populations (>100 rhinos in each) that achieve high breeding rates and retain genetic diversity, within areas of suitable habitat that show long-term economic viability of their wildlife-based land-use. The next area within the Lowveld region that is likely to be restocked with rhinos within the next three years in Gonarezhou N.P., where LRT would work with the Frankfurt Zoological Society to establish a new black rhino population with the potential of expanding to over 100 animals. LRT also maintains close collaboration with the Malilangwe Trust, which conserves populations of both rhino species on well-protected land adjacent to Gonarezhou N.P.

FIG 3: LOWVELD RHINO TRUST PROJECT SITES IN SOUTHERN ZIMBABWE

Red squares indicate schools to be supported through rhino production incentives

Shaded area:

LOWVELD REGION

SAVE VALLEY

CONSERVANCY:

120 black rhinos 41 white rhinos

BUBYE VALLEY

CONSERVANCY:

202 black rhinos 85 white rhinos

GONAREZHOU

NATIONAL PARK

Potential rhino expansion area

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4. Regional response

Zimbabwe is Party to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) since 1982 and is bound by the provision of this Convention in its wildlife trade with other countries. One of its iconic species, the African elephant is included in Appendix II of CITES since 1997 however live sale to appropriate and acceptable destinations is allowed.10 The current poaching trends are a great concern to the development of Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe plays an important role in the regional efforts to curb poaching and protect wildlife. The country adopted the SADC Protocol on Wildlife Conservation and Law Enforcement in 1999 as part of its efforts towards regionally-agreed approaches to conservation, management and the enforcement of illegal uses of wildlife. The SADC Protocol on Wildlife Conservation and Law Enforcement is a region-wide efforts aimed at fostering regional cooperation, protecting wildlife, promoting national and regional capacity building and the facilitation of community-based wildlife management.11

Recognizing the trans-regional and transnational nature of wildlife populations, SADC also supports the establishment of Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCAs) as a positive contribution to wildlife conservation. The TFCAs are founded with the aim of collaboratively managing shared natural and cultural resources across international boundaries for improved biodiversity conservation and socio-economic development. In the SADC region, there are 18 TFCAs in both terrestrial and marine environment in various stages of development covering over 700 000 km2. The south east Lowveld forms part of the GL-TFCA, which was established in 2002 through the signing of international treaty by the presidents of South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Notable successes of the GL- TFCA include the signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in 2014 on biodiversity conservation and management that led to strategic anti-poaching activities including improved cross-border collaboration and operations, joint training activities and the development of joint communication systems. The TFCAs are embedded under the Protocol on Wildlife Conservation and Law Enforcement.12

Another regional response emanating from the Protocol on Wildlife Conservation and Law Enforcement is the development of a 5-year regional SADC Law Enforcement and Anti-Poaching Strategy (2016 – 2021). The strategy provides a framework for country and regional cooperation, together with international engagement on natural resource management and wildlife-related law enforcement and anti-poaching issues. Zimbabwe adopted the strategy in 2015 and efforts on combatting wildlife crime in the southeast Lowveld will be guided by this strategy. In addition, activities from this project will contribute to the vision of the GL-TFCA and project partners are

10 SADC (2016) Law Enforcement and Anti-Poaching Strategy 2016 - 2021. Gaborone, Botswana 11 SADC (1999) Protocol on Wildlife Conservation and Law Enforcement. Gaborone, Botswana 12 SADC (2016) SADC Transfrontier Conservation Area. Gaborone, Botswana. www.tfcaportal.org

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expected to participate in GL-TFCA networking forums for sharing knowledge and experiences and use the network as their primary communication platform in the region.

The engagement of communities in natural resource management is important in this landscape such that the GL-TFCA developed an Integrated Livelihood Diversification Strategy to provide guidance on how to identify the most prudent ways in which to sustainably intervene in local livelihoods.13 The strategy is very relevant for improvement of livelihood of communities living near the protected areas. The adoption of the strategy is an important regional response towards uplifting community empowerment and improving livelihood security to communities living in the GL-TFCA.

5. Program Purpose

The engagement of communities in natural resource management is important in this landscape such that the GL-TFCA developed an Integrated Livelihood Diversification Strategy to provide guidance on how to identify the most prudent ways in which to sustainably intervene in local livelihoods.14 The strategy is very relevant for improvement of livelihood of communities living near the protected areas. The adoption of the strategy is an important regional response towards uplifting community empowerment and improving livelihood security to communities living in the GL-TFCA.

The following results are anticipated from the SCALE-AP Project, with the particular results to be produced by LRT from a Fixed-Amount Award (FAA) specified below:

• Wildlife prosecutions monitoring, data-base and reporting systems functioning in Zimbabwe.

• Zimbabwe’s legislation and judicial process related to wildlife crime critically reviewed and enhanced. All proposed activities that would include direct support to government officials beyond the Department of Parks and Wildlife will be cleared by the USAID/Zimbabwe Mission through USAID/Southern Africa prior to any commencement. LRT will take responsibility for ensuring that rhino-related crime is adequately addressed in this process.

• Two performance-based conservation community incentive mechanisms operating effectively within the Lowveld. The LRT’s sub-project/FAA will deal specifically with a community incentive scheme for rhino conservation within Save Valley and Bubye Valley Conservancies, with potential expansion to Gonarezhou N.P. should rhino restocking be achieved in this park during the course of the project.

• Concise key performance indicators (KPIs) for wildlife crime prevention agreed, reviewed and published annually. The LRT will specifically maintain and update a set of KPIs that pertain to rhino-related wildlife crime in the Lowveld.

• Community-based scouting units functioning in two sites in southeast Lowveld. USAID investments will not be utilized to support police operations to address wildlife crime but rather

13 GLTFCA (2016) Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area: Integrated Livelihoods Diversification Strategy 2016 – 2030.

14 GLTFCA (2016) Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area: Integrated Livelihoods Diversification Strategy 2016 – 2030.

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support community scouting operations with the provision of non-lethal and non-surveillance technologies.

• Cross-border agreements and operational coordination in place for addressing wildlife crime.

The LRT will specifically maintain such coordination with respect to cross-border rhino crime, building upon existing networking with rhino conservation partners in southern Africa.

6. Program Objectives

The project objectives will contribute to the implementation of the United States National Strategy to Combat Wildlife Trafficking and complement current regional and bilateral programs managed by USAID and other USG agencies in Southern Africa and ongoing responses by donors, governments, private sector and other organizations.

The project will support the SADC Law Enforcement and Anti-Poaching objectives to significantly reduce the level of poaching, illegal trade in wildlife and enhance law enforcement capacity and promote sustainable utilization in the next five years. The SCALE-AP project will also be implemented under the guiding framework of the Protocol for Wildlife Conservation and Law Enforcement by facilitating the exchange of information concerning wildlife management, utilization and the enforcement of wildlife laws through the GL-TFCA, assist in the building of capacity for wildlife management, conservation and enforcement of wildlife laws and community-based natural resources management practices and incentives models.

The goal of the Supporting Communities and Law-Enforcement Against Poachers (SCALE- AP) Project is to ensure wildlife crime and illegal trade are reduced across the southeast Lowveld of Zimbabwe and the GL-TFCA as reflected by positive trends in regionally accepted key performance indicators for law enforcement and key species conservation.

The program goal will be achieved using an approach that is consistent with the overall SCALE-AP project objectives below. The implementing partners will ensure that all activities are tailored directly towards promoting within country and cross-border cooperation, capacity building, enhancing policy frameworks for law enforcement and prosecution upon approval from the Zimbabwe Mission, improving accountability and developing community incentives to support combating wildlife crime. The Lowveld Rhino Trust will, during the period of performance of this award, deal with all the rhino-related components of the following specific objectives:

Objective 1: Enhance partnerships and coordination to reduce wildlife crime in the southeast Lowveld and GL-TFCA.

Objective 2: Improve law enforcement and conservation accountability.

Objective 3: Improve capacity and policy framework for law enforcement and prosecution.

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Objective 4: Communities are engaged as an effective first line of defense against commercial wildlife crime of the southeast Lowveld and GL-TFCA.

Objective 5: Develop performance-based community rhino incentives.

This project is relevant to all these objectives while having a specific focus on Objective 5, within two Zimbabwean Lowveld areas that contain key rhino and elephant populations. A Fixed Amount Award (FAA) will enable the Lowveld Rhino Trust to tackle this objective while maintaining close coordination with several other conservation partners in this landscape, who seek USAID support to tackle Objectives 1-4 through a separate Cooperative Agreement. While the FAA is undertaken in coordination with the Cooperative Agreement, it nonetheless is fully self-standing as it will deliver specific outputs within its own scope of activities, as described below.

Two large Lowveld conservancies, Save Valley Conservancy (SVC) of 2,500 km²; and Bubye Valley Conservancy (BVC) of 3,000 km², together contain over 320 black rhinos and over 125 white rhinos breeding naturally under free-range conditions, along with a full spectrum of other wildlife species including elephant and lion and endangered species such as pangolin, wild dog and cheetah.

BVC is entirely private-owned by shareholders whose investments have been protected from land appropriation because of relevant Bilateral Investment Protection Protocols. Most of the northern half of SVC is under similar protected tenure, whereas the southern half has suffered from a significant degree of unplanned resettlement within units of land that were not protected under foreign investment protocols. While the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority has stepped in to claim control of such units, they have not been formally gazetted as land within the Parks Estate and therefore their tenure is contentious.

These areas constitute significant islands of biodiversity, around which communities live at high densities, with too little natural capital left to sustain them, and consequently a high reliance on external jobs enabling wage remittances. Under these conditions, opportunities for conventional CBNRM projects are limited and cannot generally uplift local household incomes. Neither is it appropriate to try to stimulate supportive community attitudes towards rhino conservation through simplistic “hand-outs”. Instead, a performance-based approach has been initiated in each of these areas through which inputs are allocated towards community support as well as towards conventional anti-poaching needs according to the rate of rhino population growth achieved in the year. The higher the growth rate, the more funding that flows to the community incentives, and the lower the growth rate (due to poaching) the more that it is allocated to primary rhino protection measures. The criteria by which the incentives are balanced between the two streams of support are, therefore, the number of rhino calves produced in each area per year compared to the poaching losses of rhinos in those conservancies. This incentives approach was initiated around the two conservancies with funding support from the European Union through a project contract (“Partnership models for sustaining viable land use initiatives and livelihoods in semi-arid TFCAs” - DCI-FOOD/2010/258-368) which was completed in mid-2016. The potential for stimulating community buy-in to rhino conservation efforts was adequately demonstrated during this exploratory phase, so the approach now needs to be refined and maintained during a further consolidation phase, through the FAA.

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7. Technical Approach

In accordance with several Memoranda of Understanding, the Lowveld Rhino Trust (LRT) undertakes the monitoring and management functions for some 450 rhinos in two large conservancies in the Lowveld region of southern Zimbabwe, each constituting a “Key 1” black rhino population as defined by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (i.e. they have over 100 rhinos in each); there are only 10 Key 1 black rhino populations in Africa.

The importance of maintaining large populations lies partly in the fact that these populations are better able to maintain positive growth and genetic diversity even when they suffer some poaching losses, whereas the loss of a few individuals from small populations can significantly undermine the rhinos’ social structure, breeding performance and the populations’ general viability. Thus, effective biological management has to be regarded as a key component of the fight against wildlife crime, since without adequate reproduction of an exploited species there may be insufficient time within which to bring anti-crime efforts up to an adequate level before these populations are extirpated.

In view of the importance of stimulating communities to become allies in the fight against commercial wildlife crime, the LRT is working on several projects that bring local communities into a positive economic relationship with adjoining rhino conservancies, with an emphasis on providing tangible community gains from successful rhino conservation. The main LRT initiative focuses on primary schools within 10 km of the conservancies’ boundaries as the entry points for raising awareness of rhino conservation, along with the input of much-needed school materials. These materials include exercise books with rhino messages, environmental science textbooks with more detailed messages, and specially produced materials that enable teachers to use rhino-themed exercises to teach basic subjects, such as arithmetic and geography. Annual quiz competitions are held between the schools, based upon these materials, so that the rhino conservation awareness is reinforced and further inputs are provided to the winning schools. These are now the most strongly supported school competitions in the Lowveld region.

The overall inputs given to schools around each conservancy are shown to be related to rhino population growth, with higher growth rates resulting in more inputs and lower rates resulting in less inputs, with the rationale that low growth rates are invariably due to poaching which necessitates that conservation funds are then allocated more to rhino security. This gives communities an incentive to assist to the maximum extent that they can in thwarting attempted poaching incursions (which tend to involve highly mobile gangs of “outsiders” from other areas), and thereby ensure a greater flow of inputs to their schools. Over recent years, under an EU-funded contract (now ended after its full term), the LRT has been providing these inputs to 145 schools around Lowveld conservancies, each of which typically has about 700 pupils.

There are three main reasons why community support is given in the form of inputs (environmental science text books, exercise books, etc.) to schools within 10 km of the conservancies’ boundaries:

a.) other attempts by Lowveld conservancies to implement community outreach projects have been derailed by politicians or by local government officials and other gate-keepers for aid, seeking to

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control patronage, whereas the communities are less tolerant of such interference in the education of their children; b.) the school inputs can be closely linked to an environmental awareness programme, with a focus on rhinos (the environmental science books contain notes on rhinos); c.) school inputs ensure gender equality in terms of conferring equal benefit to both female and male pupils (who are generally in the age-range of 9-14 years), and provide opportunities for engagement with both male and female teachers. All educational materials supported by this project will be approved by the Zimbabwe Ministry of Education in accordance with national policies and guidelines.

The LRT approach incorporates the following elements:

• Recognizing rhinos as globally important biodiversity assets and umbrella species whose conservation concurrently conserves a broad range of other biodiversity (e.g. their current range in southern Zimbabwe also serves for approximately 2,000 elephants, 530 lions, over 200 wild dogs, and the full spectrum of other indigenous large mammals) – the rhino conservation efforts were the catalyst to transforming significant areas from cattle ranching operations into large wildlife conservancies.

• Translating this recognition of the biodiversity value of rhinos into an “existence value” for each rhino asset in terms of a financial incentive that is paid by the international conservation community for each rhino calf that is produced, similar to the payments that are made for quantifiable ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration.

• Identifying a “production partnership” of stakeholders who achieve rhino births, including local communities, private conservancies and NGOs who have defined roles in breeding the rhinos under a performance-based arrangement, and who derive certain returns from that effort through the calf production incentives that are paid to the partnership.

• Helping to meet the primary production costs of breeding rhinos, by allocating a minimum of 50% of the annually-paid production incentives to rhino security costs in each rhino breeding area.

• The other 50% of income is split between pay-outs of much-needed educational materials to local schools (these materials being linked to a conservation awareness campaign) and further expenditure on anti-poaching inputs. The schedule of allocations is as follows:

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TABLE 1: PROPORTIONAL ALLOCATION OF RHINO PRODUCTION INCENTIVES

Net annual rhino pop growth in year

Proportion of available funds allocated to

Security Inputs School Inputs

7%+ 50% 50%

6% 55% 45%

5% 60% 40%

4% 65% 35%

3% 70% 30%

2% 75% 25%

1% 80% 20%

0% or minus 85% 15%

• “Auditing” the rhino assets through the close monitoring of them by the Lowveld Rhino Trust. This is undertaken on the basis of ongoing identification sightings of the rhinos (each of which is uniquely ear-notched, identity-coded and named). The financial incentives for calf production are allocated within the partnership according to this independent, professional verification.

• Managing the rhino assets for maximum growth and for genetic heath by developing and maintaining key populations of 100+ in each. Some poaching losses are inevitable and must be sustained – the aim is to breed more rhinos than are lost.

It is important to appreciate that there is a limit to the extent to which communities can directly tackle commercial wildlife crime in wildlife areas adjacent to their areas of settlement. Rhino poachers typically drive in from other areas and mount quick hit-and-run attacks from drop-off points, often being collected by vehicles at different points, after generally avoiding contact with local communities (other than sometimes cultivating a few local informants or guides). Therefore, the main community role is one of “eyes-and-ears”, i.e. reporting unusual vehicle movements through their areas, or else sightings of strangers entering or exiting conservancies. Three examples of such reports are a.) community representatives’ cell-phoning to report a dehydrated, armed poacher wandering amongst villages after barely escaping from an anti-poaching unit in BVC; b.) a similar cell-phoning effort (which required that the informers walked some distance to get into network coverage) to report a poachers’ vehicle that was suspiciously driving through a resettlement area towards BVC’s boundary in the early hours; c.) direct participation by school staff and villagers in chasing and overpowering a rhino poachers’ accomplice near SVC, resulting in the arrest of the rest of his gang. In addition to their function as “eyes-and-ears”, crucial political leverage potentially arises when communities recognize that the inputs of rhino production incentives to their

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schools can be maximized if they complain (e.g. via their parliamentarians) of corruption and lack of effort on the part of state policing agencies, thus reinforcing complaints from the conservancy representatives. Making local communities aware of the relevant KPIs for law-enforcement efforts within their areas would be an important part of the project, to add the civic momentum to the national effort to reduce rhino poaching. A Key Performance Indicator is established in LRT’s annual monitoring to track the proportion of rhino poaching incursions reported or reacted to by the local community. It will take some years to assess this trend in a meaningful way, but current indications are positive.

Each year, the LRT undertakes rhino management operations during which rhino calves are ear-notched according to a pattern of small ear notches around the margins of each ear which constitute a numeric code pertaining to the unique national identity number that is given to each rhino. At the same time, photographs are taken and data sheets completed to record body dimensions, any physical characteristics, etc., and genetic samples are collected. Because of the risk of lions and hyenas killing young rhinos if they become separated from their mothers overnight during drug-darting operations, only black rhino calves older than 18 months, and white rhino calves over 24 months, are drug-darted in these routine operations. Over recent years, these operations have been consistently supported by annual grants from the US Fish & Wildlife Services’ Rhino and Tiger Conservation Fund. Without these operations, it would be impossible to maintain an accurate rhino monitoring system based upon individual recognition of rhinos that are periodically tracked down by LRT’s rhino monitoring teams. The maintenance of such a system is a key anti-poaching measure since it ensures that rhinos that are poached, and whose loss from large populations could remain undetected, are in fact noted as missing and further checks are made, which often expose poaching activity. Having detailed information on rhino populations can often assist with key details required to strengthen court cases against poachers. As in any commercial crime, whether or not the culprits are arrested, providing convincing information on the loss of national assets (in this case, wildlife assets) is crucial to building political and legal momentum to thwart such crime.

Records and photographs (and genetic samples) taken at the time that rhino calves are ear-notched provide the basis of reporting on these operations to the Zimbabwean Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, and provide a verifiable means for determining not only what levels of reproduction are being achieved but also confirming that relevant rhino management inputs are being made by the LRT. For the FAA to be based upon the provision of incentives for rhino calf production, it is logical that the contractual milestones be derived from these ear-notching records.

An alternative means of verifying calf production milestones would be for LRT monitors to provide photographs and records of newborn calves in each conservancy. However, it is undesirable to disturb rhino cows with newborn calves so the LRT monitors tend to avoid trying to photographing them. Despite the fact that records of ear-notchings entail a lag of time between births and the confirmation of those, the fully-recorded annual ear-notching results can be regarded as being adequately indicative of contractual performance in terms of achieving calf production in the face of poaching challenges, as well as making hands-on management inputs.

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TABLE 2: OUTPUTS AND LRT ACTIVITIES WITHIN FAA

Specific objective of LRT's project/FAA:

Further development of existing performance-based community rhino incentives adjacent to Bubye and Save Valley Conservancies, to reduce rhino poaching

Output 1 A systematic rhino monitoring programme maintained for the Lowveld populations, based upon records of sightings of individual rhinos.

Activity 1.1 Confirm at least 50 rhino identifications each month through photography and/or radio tracking, and record these on standard sighting forms.

Activity 1.2 Maintain standardize databases for Lowveld rhino populations, and report on the status of these populations to Zimbabwe Parks & Wildlife Management Authority, conservancies, SADC Rhino Management Group, USAID, SCALE-AP partners, etc., using Key Performance Indicators.

Output 2 Metapopulation management achieved and necessary veterinary interventions undertaken, maximizing population growth rates and maintaining genetic diversity.

Activity 2.1 Undertake routine rhino metapopulation management (including ear-notchings), through at least 30 drug-dartings/year, and translocations as required.

Activity 2.2 Undertake emergency interventions for rhinos in the Lowveld (treatment of injuries, captures of straying or orphaned rhinos, etc), as required.

Activity 2.3 Provide support as required for hand-rearing of calves, followed by their phased release back into wild populations.

Activity 2.4 Provide technical and logistical support for the establishment of a rhino IPZ in Gonarezhou National Park (not costed because uncertain).

Output 3 Anti-poaching and law-enforcement in the Lowveld facilitated in order to keep the poaching rate of rhinos below their reproductive rate.

Activity 3.1 Support conservancies’ anti-poaching staff with patrolling equipment and non-lethal technologies to protect viable Lowveld rhino populations.

Activity 3.2 Provide non-surveillance equipment to facilitate collection of evidence and support prosecutions of rhino crimes.

Activity 3.3 Maintain and analyze records of rhino poaching in the Lowveld.

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Activity 3.4 Supply DNA samples from Lowveld rhinos for RhoDIS forensics system.

Activity 3.5 Participate as required in activities of National Rhino Coordination Committee(s) and other planning and policy consultations relating to rhino conservation in Zimbabwe.

Output 4 Incentives provided for communities to support rhino conservation.

Activity 4.1 Support schools adjacent to key rhino areas through the provision of educational materials, in proportion to rhino population growth rates, linked to rhino conservation awareness activities.

Activity 4.2 Facilitate any other opportunities for communities to derive benefits from rhino production.

A note on Output 3: Anti-poaching and law-enforcement in the Lowveld facilitated in order to keep the poaching rate of rhinos below their reproductive rate.

The anti-poaching and law enforcement referenced under Output 3 above refers to the conservancies’ anti-poaching staff employed by the Save Valley and the Bubye Valley conservancies and tasked with the responsibilities of patrolling of the conservancies and wildlife monitoring. It is important for this project to provide improved capacity of conservancies’ anti-poaching staff to protect and monitor the wildlife and wildlife products. However the capacity building interventions involving state agencies will be limited to information sharing, raising awareness, and coordination among relevant actors. Zimbabwean police will not receive any form of training from the USAID investment nor directly participate in the project. Equally important is the involvement of local communities to provide an effective First Line of Defense. Under this project, the community participation will largely involve incentivizing the schools with reading materials to promote environmental awareness.

The conservancies’ anti-poaching staff will be equipped with non-lethal security technologies to effectively perform their duties. The anti-poaching staff will be supported with radio and phone communications, uniform such as rain wear, patrol equipment such as cooking utensils, headlights, and sleeping gear and non-lethal self-defense items such as batons & pepper-spray. All the equipment identified to support the patrolling will be cleared by USAID prior to commencement of implementation and frequently evaluated to ensure USAID funds are not diverted to non-covered activities.

The anti-poaching staff working at these conservancies will also be supplied with non-surveillance equipment to facilitate collection of evidence where necessary. Such non-surveillance equipment includes communication equipment such as the digital cameras and smart phones, navigation equipment such as the geographical positioning systems (GPS) and the evidence collection kits. The USAID investment will not be utilized for the purchase of surveillance equipment such as the listening and recording devices or transmitters. All the equipment identified to support the anti-poaching staff will be cleared by the USAID prior to commencement of implementation. The Zimbabwe Activity Manager and the USAID/Southern Africa will conduct frequent evaluation to ensure the USAID funds are not diverted to non-covered activities.

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8. Applicability, replicability and sustainability of this approach

While it is clear that holistic strategies to combat wildlife crime must include community-based approaches, it is often less clear what those approaches might be. Some leading practitioners of Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) tend to criticize agencies that are trying to protect species such as rhinos for making insufficient community outreach efforts, yet may prescribe approaches that are unrealistic for many of the current rhino conservation situations.

“Golden rules” that are typically suggested by CBNRM theorists include: there must be an enabling macro-environment (including conducive official policies, especially in terms of giving wildlife property rights to the land-holders); there must be an economically sustainable wildlife-based business deal to be made with each community, sufficient to generate benefits for each and every household; there cannot be too many households (not more than 300 per project) or else these benefits become too diluted and transaction costs become too high; the community must have a coherent structure, etc. If these rules can’t be complied with, then the next golden rule is that “you must walk away”.

In reality, these conditions for classical CBNRM projects are rarely met in areas that are adjacent to rhino concentrations in southern Africa. The Lowveld situation is one of extreme policy distortion, to the extent that nine local chiefs have jointly stated that they have lost faith in Zimbabwe’s CBNRM programme (CAMPFIRE); property rights are not respected by the authorities, either for communities or for commercial wildlife ranchers; conservation managers are pushed by the communities as well as by the authorities to spread unrealistic wildlife “benefits” over not just a few hundred but over tens of thousands of people, who are sometimes socially heterogeneous because of recent resettlement mix-ups, and have high dependency on external breadwinners who have little relationship to local natural resources. So, rather than assuming that rhino-linked CNRM approaches can be developed to materially uplift local household incomes, a more realistic objective is to generate social incentives for communities (that are generally law-abiding) to support rhino conservation through a heightened sense of community responsibility.

Similar circumstances of high population pressures and diversified livelihoods are typical of many communities living adjacent to rhino populations in South Africa (e.g. Kruger N.P.), Swaziland, Malawi and some other rhino range states. Therefore, while classical CBNRM approaches can and should be supported in areas where they remain applicable (e.g. Namibian communal conservancies), it is appropriate to test other approaches that are based on influencing community attitudes through carefully targeted incentives linked to conservation awareness campaigns. As noted above, the LRT has found that providing community support in the form of inputs to schools achieves high magnification of impact because poor rural households place high importance on education of their children, and teachers are often the most effective advocates for conservation action within these communities.

The start-up funding that LRT secured to initiate this rhino production incentives approach needs to be maintained through a period during which it can be fully demonstrated as being equivalent to a

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“Payment for Ecosystem Services” approach. It is logical to regard rhinos as proxy indicators of general biodiversity conservation, since when present in IUCN-defined “Key 1” populations (i.e.

over 100 rhinos in each) as they are in the Lowveld conservancies, they indicate large, effectively protected assemblages of natural capital and ecosystem services. Performance-based approaches in conservation financing are attracting increasing international interest so there is a high probability that once fully established, this performance-based approach will entrain further funding support and can be rolled out to other landscapes with the USAID regional program. For instance, the LRT is already engaged in a technical advisory role with the Rhino Impact Investment Project which is funded primarily by GEF and which, after initiation in Kenya, will be extended as funding permits to southern African sites that contain Key 1 black rhino populations. This project is based on some principles of social impact bonds which readily mesh with the rhino production incentives approach.

9. Partnership Approach

Key partners (directly engaged in the broader SCALE-AP Project) are:

1. Sustainable Agriculture Technology (SAT)

Role: lead implementation and coordination partner for SCALE-AP (although LRT’s FAA contract will be administered directly by LRT).

2. Tikki Hywood Trust

Role: lead in promoting improved policy frameworks, prosecutorial success and L-E accountability in Zimbabwe; working with LRT on development and implementation of KPI system to monitor L-E success.

3. WILD-Africa.org

Role: coordinate activities pertaining to two Community Conservancies adjacent to Gonarezhou N.P. with long-term rhino restocking potential; establishment of functional community incentive scheme around this Park (in liaison with LRT insofar as rhino production incentives may be concerned).

4. Frankfurt Zoological Society

Role: lead in coordinating security in and around Gonarezhou N.P. including facilitating the establishment of a conservancy on the Mozambique side of the Park; lead in rhino restocking project within the Park, to be included in LRT’s rhino production incentives scheme once established and when funds permit.

All partners including LRT shall also have responsibilities towards each other in terms of facilitating joint efforts towards achieving the overall objectives of SCALE-AP through mutually supportive

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efforts and adaptive joint planning of this and any other relevant initiatives that may arise in the Lowveld, notwithstanding the fact that the funding administration of the above partners will be through a USAID Cooperative Agreement while LRT will operate under a separate FAA contract.

Further details of the outputs envisaged from the SCALE-AP Cooperative Agreement, and of the roles of the key partners under that agreement, are contained in a separate but related proposal for that agreement

Other partners include but are not limited to:

1. The Malilangwe Trust

2. Bubye Valley Conservancy

3. Save Valley Conservancy

4. Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education

5. GLTFCA

6. Gonarezhou Conservation Trust

7. The Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife…