By Christina Witvroumen
Zimbabwe’s controversial decision to cull 50 elephants in Save Valley Conservancy (SVC)—while renewing its campaign to lift the international ivory trade ban—has sparked national and international outcry. More than a conservation policy, this decision lays bare a deeper crisis: a broken system that privileges elite control and economic expediency over justice, ecology, and human dignity.
Conservation in Zimbabwe stands at a dangerous crossroads, where short-term profits threaten long-term sustainability and social harmony.
The Deeper Issue: Inequality Drives Encroachment
SVC spans an impressive 3,496 km², yet its benefits are confined to a small circle of elite and foreign interests. Surrounding communities—some of Zimbabwe’s most economically marginalized—live without reliable access to land, water, infrastructure, or income. Many were displaced from these lands during colonial and post-colonial periods. Today, they live at the periphery of a fortress-style conservation model that excludes them from resources, decision-making, and benefits.
When people encroach on the conservancy, it is not out of ignorance—it is a survival strategy rooted in structural inequality. They are not invaders; they are former custodians denied their rights. The framing of encroachment as a security threat ignores this history and blocks genuine solutions.
The Elephant Cull: A Symptom of Flawed Policy
The government justifies the cull as population control, citing rising elephant numbers and local ecosystem strain. Yet, the most recent detailed aerial survey—conducted in 2014 and covering 7.6% of SVC—estimated 1,585 elephants, a number far below crisis levels. Elephants tend to cluster in water-rich zones, leading to localized pressure, but not necessarily overpopulation across the entire conservancy.
In this context, the cull appears to serve other motives: appeasing political interests, creating the impression of conservation “management,” and potentially laying the groundwork for ivory stockpile monetization. Distributing elephant meat to communities as justification is a symbolic gesture, not a structural solution.
Ivory Sales: The Illusion of Conservation Finance
The parallel push to sell Zimbabwe’s ivory stockpile—allegedly worth over US$600 million—is often promoted as a way to fund conservation. Yet history has shown that legalized ivory markets stimulate demand, mask illegal trade, and fail to deliver long-term benefits for wildlife or communities.
Linking conservation finance to ivory profits turns endangered species into speculative assets. It incentivizes extraction over protection and ignores the people who coexist with these animals. Without transparency, accountability, and consent, this strategy risks deepening mistrust and conflict.
A New Vision: People-Centered Conservation
Real conservation must be democratic, inclusive, and rooted in justice. Zimbabwe has the opportunity to lead—not through elephant culling and ivory sales—but by pioneering ethical, community-centered models.
- Legal Co-Management and Local Empowerment
- Legally recognize local communities as co-managers of conservancies.
- Institutionalize mechanisms for shared decision-making and conflict resolution.
- Redirect a fair share of tourism, carbon, and wildlife revenues to community trusts.
- Sustainable Livelihoods Linked to Conservation
- Expand investment in agroecology, ecotourism, crafts, and climate-resilient enterprises.
- Provide training, infrastructure, and start-up capital to support local innovation.
- Design benefit-sharing models that reward conservation-positive behavior.
- Participatory Land Use and Justice-Based Planning
- Recognize and restore ancestral and customary land rights.
- Facilitate inclusive planning to define buffer zones, wildlife corridors, and shared-use areas.
- Address past grievances with restitution mechanisms such as land leases and co-ownership models.
- Ethical Conservation Finance and Transparency
- Condition international conservation funding on equity, inclusion, and local governance.
- Audit and publish revenue flows from hunting, tourism, and carbon credits.
- Develop ethical carbon and biodiversity offset projects with full community consent.
- Restore Trust Through Dialogue and Truth-Telling
- Launch a public truth process to document land dispossession and conservation-related exclusion.
- Use the findings to guide policy reform, restitution, and healing.
Zimbabwe’s current direction—marked by elephant culling and ivory monetization—is not conservation. It is state-sanctioned commodification of life, cloaked in the language of ecology. But another path is possible.
Let this moment be a turning point. Conservation must evolve from a system of exclusion and control into a practice of justice, co-stewardship, and restoration. Elephants do not thrive behind fences, and neither do people. The future of Zimbabwe’s wildlife depends not on who owns it, but on how it is shared, protected, and honored by all.
Justice for elephants is justice for people. The two are inseparable.
This article was originally published by the author and has been published with minor editorial adjustments from its original version. Opinions expressed are the author’s and do not represent CNRG.