Introduction

People living in fragile, drought-prone rural areas struggle with extensive risks, possess few possessions, and have slim chances for earning a living from other means than using those materials around them. Respondents in these locales can speak about themselves, about their predicaments, and about their hopes, fears and visions better than any desk-bound bureaucrat or itinerant. To elicit local responses demands knowing when and how to ask as well as assiduous listening. In this section, we discuss what the Mipashi team learned about full-time and casual employment, about arrests for extra-legal uses of wildlife and its consequences, and about the sources for most ‘poaching’. Given these costs and experiences, the team asked residents if they considered the current wildlife programme a ‘fair exchange’ and about their personal and communal visions for their homeland. In addition, some residents shared their ideas about why their land had not developed as they had hoped or were promised.

Most villagers knew that the local economy and their welfare depended progressively upon access to cash and upon those generating or possessing it. The intermittent droughts and floods of recent years were harsh, particularly for those dependent exclusively upon hoe agriculture and local natural products. Consequently, employment and cash generation seemed to be on everyone's mind in 2006. Men sought money for access to material goods and to attract clients, including wives, relatives, and children – in some ways a narrower continuation of the values and investments of an earlier ‘wealth in people’ system. The ‘wealth in people’ label distinguishes a social system in which material wealth (cash, goods, and employment) is used mainly to enlarge one’s number of supporters or clients whose assistance can be commandeered if needed later, rather than for the exclusive production of additional capital or for display.