Community Markets for Conservation (COMACO)

COMACO works with illegal hunters to provide alternative livelihood skills and trains small-scale farmers to adopt climate-smart, eco-agricultural practices.

To date COMACO has transformed 1731 poachers who have surrendered 2603 firearms since 2003 and have trained 225,959 farmers as members of 86 farmer cooperatives. Together they contribute to a value chain of 19 food products under the brand It’s Wild! that we manufacture from 4 different manufacturing hubs.

These achievements are tied to sustainable agroforestry farming methods that improve soil quality and result in higher yields, increased income, and improved diets. As soil fertility improves, farmers become more sedentary and have less need to clear forests or poach wildlife. The process has enabled communities to develop the necessary leadership to self-police the protection of their resources through a collectively agreed set of regulations to enhance conservation at the local level.

These efforts lead to added markets from forest products and carbon credit sales that COMACO helps communities to gain further incentives for adopting conservation-based practices. Managed as a self-financing business model that has had 19 years testing and scaling across the entire Luangwa Valley landscape in Zambia, COMACO is now ready to replicate the model across a completely new landscape along the Eastern boundary of Kafue National Park.

The project area covers both Mumbwa and Itezhi-tezhi District and includes 13 different chiefdoms. The area is marred with high levels of deforestation from charcoal-making as well as wildlife poaching, threatening Africa’s second largest national park.

COMACO's efforts to test and replicate the model in a completely new landscape will help to reverse these past trends but also will help mainstream the model to other areas in Zambia that need a market-based approach to support livelihood incentives for conservation.

Project Impact

The project replaces the need to degrade the land and natural resources by making conservation more profitable than practices that are harmful and destructive.

As an example, rather than using chemical fertilizers, COMACO incentivises the adoption of non-chemical nature-based farming practices that achieve comparable yields at much reduced costs while allowing farmers to remain more sedentary and not prone to clearing forests for more farmland.

Project Timeline

The project will extend from 2021 to 2026.

Given that COMACO is a social enterprise designed to grow markets that sustain adoption of conservation practices, continued scaling and consolidation will continue beyond that date.

Key milestones:

• 22,000 small-scale farmers adopting agroforestry-based farming • Household income diversified two-fold with a net increase of $250 pa.

• 240,000 hectares set aside as community-protected forests and earning carbon credits from avoided deforestation

• 300 local illegal hunters surrender their firearms