When poor rural families in Zimbabwe are able to collect bushmeat, it may allow them to increase their household income through selling the meat within their communities. This means that, if policies help support communities’ access to wildlife, they can address poverty and decrease income inequality in these areas.
This is the finding of Herbert Ntuli, a research fellow at the University of Cape Town’s Environmental Policy Research Unit (EPRU). The EPRU is the South African centre of the Environment for Development (EfD) initiative.
As part of his doctoral research, under the supervision of EPRU associate professor Edwin Muchapondwa, Ntuli visited 30 different communities in the region of the Gonarezhou National Park, in Zimbabwe, in mid-2013.
