Profile of Gladman Chibememe

Gladman Chibememe is the Leader of the Chibememe Earth Healing Association, which regards water as the most important resource. CHIEHA is a brainchild of the Chiredzi community and was funded by the Global Environment Facility Small Grants Programme (GEFSGP) in 1998 with the basic focus on nature conservation and poverty alleviation campaigns.

Its extensive conservation efforts involve reforestation, watershed protection, and the conservation of traditional crops and seeds. At the same time, incomes have risen through the marketing of sustainable non-timber forest products, such as fruit-juice and honey.

It has received a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) certificate for its excellence in bio-diversity and poverty alleviation programmes. The group was selected as one of the outstanding 26 finalist communities out of 340 nominations globally by the UNDP Equator Initiative Prize Technical Committee for its community-based conservation activities. It was established at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002 with a specific role to promote poverty reduction and bio-diversity conservation.

CHIEHA is greatly involved in the community conservation awareness campaigns on the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park (GLTP) and issues related to wildlife conservation.

• Weblinks
• UNDP
• Global Environment Facility Small Grants Programme
• "Partnering to Scale-up Community-based Conservation", UN