Wildlife that pays is wildlife that stays.
How regulated, free-range hunting funds Zimbabwe's rural communities and keeps its wildlife wild.
Inquire about a huntIn Zimbabwe, wildlife lives mostly outside the national parks, on communal land, alongside people who bear the real cost of living with elephant and lion. Regulated hunting is what gives that wildlife a value worth protecting, and it channels money directly to the communities who protect it.
Every hunt Johan guides operates inside that framework: free-range, on a government quota, fair-chase, and to the professional standard of the Zimbabwe Professional Guides Association.
The CAMPFIRE programme
SINCE 1989CAMPFIRE, the Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources, was launched by the Zimbabwean government in 1989 to put wildlife back in the hands of rural communities. Rural District Councils lease hunting and photographic rights to licensed operators, and the revenue flows back to the wards that share their land with the game. A 2022 reform now directs the full international hunting revenue to communities directly, up from roughly half under the programme's original formula.
Where the money goes
Councils return a large share of hunting revenue to the wards themselves. Communities decide how to spend it, and it has built and run schools and clinics, funded boreholes and drought relief, and paid the wages of the local game scouts who patrol against poachers. CAMPFIRE reaches roughly 200,000 households directly and another 600,000 indirectly across Zimbabwe (CAMPFIRE Association).
When wildlife earns its keep, a family that might otherwise lose a crop to an elephant has a reason to keep that elephant alive.
What it protects
Since CAMPFIRE began, elephant numbers in participating areas have risen, buffalo populations have held, and habitat loss has slowed, and in places reversed. Because councils depend on the revenue, hunting laws are enforced and poaching has fallen. CAMPFIRE-designated land covers roughly 50,000 km², about 12.7% of Zimbabwe (CAMPFIRE Association).
Quotas are set conservatively, weighing each species' status and taking mostly older males, animals past breeding, so populations keep growing.
How Johan hunts
FAIR CHASEFree-range, on quota
No fences, no put-and-take. Only animals on the area's government quota, tracked in genuine wild country.
Mature animals
Old, post-breeding males, the right bull, not the first one. If it isn't there, you don't take it.
On foot
Dangerous game is tracked and taken on foot, the honest way, and the safe one with an experienced PH.
ZPGA standards
Every hunt is run to the professional and ethical standard of the Zimbabwe Professional Guides Association.
Common questions
Does hunting help conservation in Zimbabwe?+
What is the CAMPFIRE programme?+
Where does the hunting revenue actually go?+
Is Johan's hunting free-range and fair-chase?+
Hunt that leaves more behind than it takes.
Ask Johan how your safari supports the communities and wildlife of the areas you'll hunt.
Johan takes on a limited number of hunts each season, some seasons are booked out a year or two in advance.