Kevin Thomas profi les the Bubye Valley Conservancy –a Zimbabwean wildlife conservation success story that owes much to the support of paying sport hunters

Beyond Zimbabwe’s current overall media image of doom and gloom, there is a shining light in the country’s sustainable wildlife utilisation field and it goes by the name of the Bubye Valley Conservancy (BVC). It’s a success story that certainly wouldn’t be were it not for paying sport hunters – for therein lies the secret to the vast project’s accomplishments.

Significant in its achievements has been the establishment of large and flourishing populations of black rhino, elephant and African lion. This 3,740sq/km land mass (in excess of 900,000 acres) is situated in what is termed Zimbabwe’s southern lowveld region, one of the country’s hottest and driest areas. Summer temperatures regularly exceed 40˚C (104˚F) and the average recorded rainfall over 45 years is 347mm (13.6in).

Unsuited to agricultural practices or ecotourism, despite the low rainfall, the BVC has an exceedingly high nutrient ecosystem that supports large numbers of medium-sized herbivores, particularly the blue wildebeest and Burchell’s zebra. This in turn means high densities of predators can potentially be sustained.

To look briefly at BVC’s history, at the turn of the 20th century, Lemco (Liebig’s Extract of Meat Company) established a vast cattle-ranching operation on this land. Because buffalo and wildebeest were deemed to compete with livestock for grazing, as well as have the potential to transmit disease to cattle, they were eradicated. Due to predation on cattle, lion, leopard and hyena were also heavily persecuted.

Despite the Lemco wildlife eradication programme, and as is often the case under similar circumstances, most of the indigenous wildlife species survived in small isolated pockets. However, by the 1990s, the resident buffalo, lion and elephant populations had been completely wiped out. Black and white rhinos, which had historically resided in the area, had disappeared long before the establishment of the Lemco ranch.