Effectiveness of a role-playing game to identify cattle herding strategies at a wildlife - livestock interface

Abstract Natural resources at the interface of protected areas and communal lands vary spatially and temporally influencing movements of wildlife and livestock across them. In southern Africa, many of the communities living at the edge of protected areas are partly agropastoral for whom access to protected areas is essential for grazing their cattle. However, farmers need to take into account the higher predation risk or exposure to diseases from wildlife inside these areas when choosing where to graze their cattle. Additionally, herding strategies are influenced by social, economic, cultural and climatic factors, making them a complex decision-making process. We used multiple correspondence analysis on data issued from a role-playing game with local farmers living at the interface of a protected area and communal lands in Zimbabwe to identify cattle herding strategies at this wildlife-livestock interface. Our results identified two main herding strategies. First and the most common among farmers being herding cattle inside the protected area during the agricultural season. Second is the mixed strategy including grazing cattle more evenly between the protected area and the communal land during the transition between the agricultural and the dry season. The choice of grazing area was mainly associated with the presence/absence of crops in the communal lands and with the availability of stored crop residues to feed the cattle. Differences in the use of each strategy were observed in relation to different precipitation scenarios. Our results can be integrated to an agent-based model to better simulate cattle movements in this wildlife-livestock interface.