Community‐based livestock protection 539


FIG. 1 The study area in north-western Zimbabwe, showing three communal areas where the Long Shields Community Guardian programme was implemented, with locations of lion Panthera leo attacks on livestock and retaliatory killings of lions during 2008–2017.


Tsholotsho and Victoria Falls graze their livestock on com- munal grazing areas located within the communal land, whereas limited grazing opportunities in Mabale drive farmers to graze their livestock within a protected area (Sikumi Forest Land) in search of quality forage and water for their animals (LS, pers. obs., 2020). Human population and development are increasing (Guerbois et al., 2013), and the need to access the Sikumi Forest Land for grazing has contributed to an increase in attacks on livestock by wild carnivores (Perrotton, 2015). The Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Au-


thority and the Rural District Councils are responsible for managing wildlife outside the Park. Lethal control (i.e. shooting) is often the preferred method for dealing with so-called problem animals, especially for dangerous species such as the lion (Loveridge et al., 2010). Legal prosecution of farmers for killing lions is uncommon; only two farmers were prosecuted for illegally killing a lion during the study period. Farmers do not receive financial compensation from the government for livestock or crop losses to wild animals (Sibanda et al., 2020). Tsholotsho, Mabale and Victoria Falls are all part of the Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources, a community-based natural resources management programme that seeks to provide benefit through Rural District Councils to commu- nities living alongside wildlife areas, such as the provision of water sources and the renovation of local schools, clinics and roads (CAMPFIRE, 2016). Although the Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources recorded significant success since it was initiated in the early 1980s, more recently most farmers, particularly in our study area, have felt strongly negative towards it, claiming they receive few direct benefits (Western et al., 2019).


Methods


Experimental design We used a quasi-experimental design with before–after control–intervention measurements (Thiault et al., 2017), sampling treatment and non-treatment groups of farmers simultaneously before and after the introduction of the Long Shields programme. This design is commonly applied to estimate the causal effects of an intervention on a target population when random assignment to a treatment is not possible (Gertler et al., 2011). Our study involved a total of 99 villages, each with 10–75 farmsteads, all located within a 20-km radius of the Park boundary. Of these, 47%(n = 46; Mabale = 9, Tsholotsho = 15 and Victoria Falls = 22) were part of the Long Shields programme, and the remaining 53%(n = 53; Mabale = 18, Tsholotsho = 29 and Victoria Falls = 6) were not. We selected villages to be included in the programme non-randomly, based on previous signifi- cant livestock depredation, because we considered it ethi- cally unacceptable to randomly allocate villages affected by potentially life-threatening situations to treatment or non- treatment groups.


Long Shields Community Guardian programme


We introduced the community-based programme in six key stages. Firstly, we conducted a baseline survey to examine the attitudes of farmers towards lions, and underlying factors (Sibanda et al., 2020). In consultation with local trad- itional leaders,we used the theory of change framework to de- velop a logical model of behavioural change (Supplementary Fig. 1). We then recruited 14 local farmers (12 men, two women) as Community Guardians, who were selected from


Oryx, 2022, 56(4), 537–545 © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605321000302


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