When a poor rural family loses a loved one, the emotional trauma is matched by the economic adversity emanating from the loss of a husband, wife, son, or daughter who made an important contribution to the material well-being of the family. Recently, there have been incidents in Malawi where wildlife in African conservation landscapes has caused not only crop or livestock losses to rural families but also the death of a family member (Matzen, 2024). It’s unacceptable. It is a failure of management and if these incidents continue without a substantive solution, it may not be long before rural people have had enough of conservation. Compensating the family is not good enough. The death of a person needs an appropriate response. Let’s explore what that could be.
For most of the time humans have been on Earth, they have been poor. It’s really only after World War II that widespread economic growth lifted large numbers of people into the middle class where food and the basic goods of life were not always in short supply. Of course, the Industrial Revolution started it all, but wealth was still concentrated in relatively few hands until the post-war era. How did people survive? Being poor doesn’t mean you have nothing. Mostly, especially in rural Africa, it means you are never far away from a crisis. The smallest incident can tip you into economic disaster. Adverse weather, sickness, a broken bicycle chain, a harsh prison sentence for a minor crime, an accident on the bus, or a wild animal eating all your crops can make the difference between being poor and being desperate. There are no insurance policies for poor rural people.
Poor people respond by building a complex web of insurance-like backup plans that they can draw on when a crisis arrives. We can think of these as forms of capital (Figure 1) in a series of different bank accounts, each of which you can draw on when needed (Natarajan et al, 2004). There is natural capital. Forest foods, medicine, and bushmeat can be used to get through a hungry time. There is social capital. A network of friends and relatives who can lend you money, labour, or other support when you run into trouble. There is human capital. A good education, good health, and special skills that can help your family survive. A daughter may be sent to work in the city as a teacher, sending money home for a while until the crisis is over. There is financial capital. The money in a box under the bed, an outstanding loan you could call in from a friend you helped when he or she was in a crisis. There is physical capital. A bicycle, a mobile phone, and some other livestock such as goats and cows. All these things can help you navigate a crisis. If all the five community capital categories are well developed – the accounts are full – you will be able to survive a crisis. In Africa, we have cultural capital as well. Our rich cultures bind us together in a common cause, so we pull together as a community in times of crisis. So, if conservationists want to help rural people, we don’t have to solve the problem of rural people being poor. We just have to top up the community capital accounts where and when we can. How do we do that?