CAMPFIRE is a community based natural resources management programme, designed to devolve natural resource management, especially wildlife, to local communities. The programme in Bulilimamangwe district seeks to enhance the community's wildlife base by partitioning a wildlife buffer in the grazing area. Benefits from managing the wildlife, mainly through hunting and photographic safaris, will accrue to the CAMPFIRE communities. Such community based programmes presuppose the existence of a community, which can manage, or is managing, natural resources. In this article, we examine the problems of introducing community based management of wildlife in Bulilimamangwe district of western Zimbabwe, by looking at issues regarding cattle ownership and grazing practice. We conclude that one of the challenges to CAMPFIRE as a community based programme is the fact that the structure of the Bulilimamangwe community is a composite of different economic sub-groups with competing interests.
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