Tchuma Tchato — "our wealth" — is a community conservation model in Tete where 85% of tourism revenue goes to the community. It proves that conservation that includes people works better than conservation that excludes them.
Conservation That Includes People
Tchuma Tchato is a community conservation initiative in Tete Province that has become a model for all of Mozambique. Its name means "our wealth" in Nyungwe — and the philosophy is simple: wildlife is community wealth, and protecting it should benefit the people who live alongside it.
This is the story of how one project changed the way Mozambique thinks about conservation.
The Problem with Exclusionary Conservation
Traditional conservation in Africa has followed a colonial model: declare an area a park, evict the people who live there, hire armed rangers to keep them out, and sell safari tickets to foreign tourists. The community loses their land, their hunting rights, and their relationship with the wildlife. The park authority and foreign lodge owners profit.
This model creates resentment. When people are excluded from their ancestral land, they poach — not for profit, but for food, for resistance, for justice. Conservation that excludes people fails.
The Tchuma Tchato Alternative
Tchuma Tchato was established in 1994 in the Cahora Bassa district of Tete Province, along the Zambezi River. The model is fundamentally different:
- Community ownership: The land remains under community control through the DUAT (land use rights) system.
- Community rangers: Local people are trained and employed as rangers — they protect the wildlife because it is their wildlife.
- Revenue sharing: 85% of tourism revenue goes directly to the community — funding schools, clinics, and community projects.
- Sustainable use: Communities are allowed limited, sustainable use of natural resources — fishing, thatching grass, honey collection.
- Human-wildlife mitigation: Tourism revenue funds electric fencing, compensation for crop damage, and rapid-response teams for problem animals.
The Results
Since its establishment, Tchuma Tchato has:
- Increased wildlife populations (especially buffalo, sable, and waterbuck)
- Reduced poaching (because the community has an economic stake in wildlife protection)
- Funded a community school, a clinic, and a borehole
- Employed over 20 community rangers
- Demonstrated that community-based conservation works — not just as theory, but as practice
Visiting Tchuma Tchato
Listed on nendeni.com: Tchuma Tchato community conservation experience in Tete. 85% community benefit, community-owned.
What You'll Experience
- 4x4 game drives: With community rangers who know the wildlife and the land intimately
- Walking safaris: Track buffalo and antelope on foot with guides who grew up in the bush
- Community visits: Meet the people who benefit from the conservation — see the school, the clinic, the borehole
- Zambezi sunset cruises: The Zambezi at sunset, with hippos and fish eagles
- Cultural evenings: Nyungwe storytelling, music, and food
Practical Info
- Location: Cahora Bassa district, Tete Province
- Access: Drive from Tete city (3-4 hours on rough roads, 4x4 required)
- Best season: May–September (dry, cool, best wildlife)
- Accommodation: Community camping with basic facilities
- Price: $45/day including guiding
Why This Matters
Tchuma Tchato proves that conservation and community development are not competing goals — they are the same goal. When communities benefit from wildlife, they protect it. When they protect it, wildlife thrives. When wildlife thrives, more tourists come. When more tourists come, communities benefit more.
This is the virtuous cycle that defines ethical tourism. And it works — not in theory, but in practice, in a remote corner of Tete Province where the Zambezi flows past buffalo and baobabs and communities that have learned to live with both.
Visit Tchuma Tchato through nendeni.com.